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The History of a Parisienne. 

(HISTOIRE D’UNE PARISIENNE.) 


BEING THE STORY OF A 


AI^ISIAN 



OMAN OF 


ASH ION. 


BY OCTAVE FEUILLET. 

AUTHOR OF “THE COUNT DE CAMORS,” “ BELLAH,” “THE LITTLE COUNTESS," 
“THE AMOURS OF PHILIPPE; OR, philippe's LOVE AFFAIRS." 



TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH 

BY CHARLES RIPLEY. 


In the “ History of a Parisienne,” Octave Feuillet makes a novel out of the mate - 
rials which he finds in the upper circles of aristocratic society in France. His aim is 
to show how an accomplished, beautiful, and amiable girl may be transformed, by being 
wedded to a worthless, cynical and depraved husband, into a kind of moral monster, 
capable of anything and believing in nothing. He lays the blame of the ruin of many 
married women to the carelessness or perversity of their mothers in accepting hus- 
bands for them who are not suited to win their hearts or to understand their souls. 
Fvery page is illuminated by some bright witticism or profound observation. As a 
work of art, ont cannot fail to get great pleasure out of the book ; while for cleverness, 
thrilling interest, and beauty of style, it is unquestionably one of the most powerful 
and successful works ever put forth by this gifted author. Highly original in form 
and intensely dramatic , it also stands unrivalled as an example of terse and graphic 
character-painting ; and the terrible transformation wrought in the nature of a pure 
and noble woman by evil associates and the brutality of a coarse and unscrupulous 
husband is delineated with a skill that holds the reader spell-bound to the end. 



I tfl} 
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V 


COPYRIGHT. — 1881 . 

T. JB. PETERSON &c BROTHERS 



I ■ > 


HENRY GREYILLFS CELEBRATED NOYEES. 
Xénie’s Inheritance. A Tale of Russian Life. By Henry Gréville. 

The different characters that figure in this delightful love story are all drawn with that 
spirited and delicate touch for which this author is especially noted. 

The Trials of Raissa. A Russian Story. By Henry Gréville. 

“The Trials of Raïssa,” is a love story full of fascination and power. The action 
takes place in St. Petersburg, the country and Siberia. The descriptions are admirable. 

The Princess Oghérof. A Russian Love Story. By Henry Gréville. 

“The Princess Oghérof,” is a thoroughly fascinating love story. Its interest is in- 
tense and sustained, and at no point does the reader find a dull line. It is purity itself. 

liticie Rotiey. A New Society Novel. By Henry Gréville. 

“Lucie Rodey” teaches a great lesson, and in it all readers will find the wife and 
mother “faithful unto death,” though exposed to lots of trials and temptations. 

Savéli’s Expiation. A Powerful Russian Love Story. By Henry Gréville. 

“Savéli’s Expiation” is one of the most dramatic and most powerful novels ever pub- 
lished, while a pathetic love story, running all through its pages, is presented for relief. 

Markof, the Russian Violinist. A Russian Story. By Henry Gréxille. 

“Markof” is an art study, full of beautiful prose and trüe poetry, and is such a work 
as could be written only by such an artist and genius as the author of “ Dosia” is. 

I>osia. A Russian Story. By Henry Gréville. 

“ Dosia” is a charming story of Russian society, is written with a rare grace of style, is 
brilliant, pleasing and attractive. It is an exquisite creation, and is pure and fresh as a rose. 

Dournof. A Russian Story. By Henry Gréville. 

“Dournof” is a charming and graphic story of Russian life, containing careful studies 
of Russian character, and character drawing, which are most admirable. 

Marrying’ Off a Daughter. A Society Novel. By Henry Gréville. 

“Marrying Off a Daughter” is gay, sparkling, and pervaded by a delicious tone of 
quiet humor, and will be read and enjoyed by thousands of readers. 

Ronne-Marie. A^Tale of Normandy and Paris. By Henry Gréville. 

“ Bonne-Marie” is a charming story, the scenes of which are laid in Normandy and 
in Paris. It will no doubt create a sensation, such is its freshness, beauty, and delicacy. 

Pretty Y.ittle Countess Zina. A Charming Story. By Henry Gréville. 

Zina, the Countess, bears a resemblance to Dosia — that bewitching creature — in her 
dainty wilfulness, while the ward and cousin, Vassalissa, is an entire new' creation. 

Son ill. A Russian Love Story. By Henry Gréville. 

“Sonia” is charming and refined, and is a powerful, graceful, domestic story, being 
most beautifully told — giving one a very distinct idea of every-day home life in Russia. 

Philoméne’s Marriages. A Tale of Normandy. By Henry Gréville. 

The heroine's life is narrated in a most f ascinating manner, and is an admirable pic? 
ture of country home-life, full of wit, of a high moral tone, and full of interest. 

Gabrielle; or. The House of Maureze. By Henry Gréville. 

A Friend ; or, L’Ami, A Society Novel. By Henry Gréville. 


CONTENTS. 

♦-+-* 

Chapter Page 

i. jeanne’s conquest 21 

II. DISAPPOINTMENT 36 

m. AN ILLUSION DESTROYED . . 44 

IV. A mother’s stratagem 68 

V. THE OPENING OF THE SIEGE 78 

VI. THE POWER OF SYMPATHY 87 

VII. CONGENIAL COMPANIONSHIP 109 

Vni. A LONG SOUGHT OPPORTUNITY 117 

IX. THE CHALLENGE 127 

X. MADAME D’HERMANY’S BALL 138 

XI. A VAIN APPEAL 149 

XII. A DAY OF DOOM 166 

XIII. A STRANGE TRANSFORMATION 182 

XIV. SCHEMES OF VENGEANCE 194 

XV. “LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI ” 212 

XVI. ANOTHER TRANSFORMATION 222 


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THE 


HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 

(HISTOIRE D’UNE PARISIENNE.) 

BEING THE STOBY OF A 

PARISIAN WOMAN OF FASHION. 

BY OCTAVE FEUILLET. 

AUTHOR OF “THE COUNT DE CAMORS,” “THE AMOURS OF PHILIPPE,” 
“BELLAH,” “THE LITTLE COUNTESS,” ETC. 


CHAPTER I. 

jeanne’s conquest. 

I T would be too much to assert that all mar- 
riageable young girls are angels, but there 
are some angels among marriageable young girls. 
Indeed, they are by no means rare, and strange 
as it may appear, they are much less rare in Paris 
than elsewhere. The reason is very simple. In 
this great Parisian conservatory, virtues and vices, 

( 21 ) 


22 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


as well as talents, are developed with the greatest 
possible rapidity, and attain the highest degree 
of perfection or of subtilty. Nowhere in the 
world does one breathe more acrid poisons or 
sweeter perfumes. Nowhere, too, is a pretty 
woman more attractive, or a good woman more 
thoroughly good. 

Every one knew that the Marquise de Latour- 
Mesnil, though one of the best and prettiest of 
her sex, had not been particularly happy with 
her husband. Not that he was really a bad man, 
but he liked to enjoy himself, and he did not 
enjoy himself in the society of his wife. Conse- 
quently, he had greatly neglected her: she had 
wept bitterly in secret without his either know- 
ing or caring; then he died, leaving the Marquise 
with the impression that her life had beeji a 
failure. As she was a gentle, modest soul, she 
had the goodness to blame herself on the score 
of insufficient merit, and wishing to save her 
daughter from a similar destiny, she. applied all 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


23 


her energies to the task of making her an 
eminently accomplished and elegant person, who 
would, perhaps, also be capable of retaining her 
husband’s affection after marriage. These supe- 
rior educations are in Paris, as elsewhere, the 
consolation of many widows whose husbands are 
still alive. 

Mademoiselle Jeanne Bérengère de Latour- 
Mesnil had the good fortune to be endowed by 
Heaven with all the attributes likely to aid in 
the realization of the ambition her mother enter- 
tained for her. Her naturally intelligent and 
active mind adapted itself marvellously to the 
delicate maternal culture that her parent had 
bestowed upon it in her daughter’s earliest 
infancy. Later, superior instructors, carefully 
watched and superintended, initiated her into 
all the ideas, tastes and accomplishments that 
form a woman’s greatest adornment. In moral 
training, her only teacher was her mother, who, 
by her example and by the inherent purity of 


24 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


her character, made her daughter as healthy in 
mind as herself. 

In addition to the merits we have just men- 
tioned, Mademoiselle de Latour-Mesnil had the 
good luck to possess another, which it is impos- 
sible for frail human nature to underrate: she 
was extremely pretty, and possessed the form 
and grace of a nymph, with the modest and 
retiring mien and blushes of a child. Her supe- 
riority, of which she was only vaguely conscious, 
embarrassed her. She was at the same time 
proud and ashamed of it. When alone with her 
mother she was talkative and enthusiastic; in 
public she was as quiet and mute as a beautiful 
flower, but her magnificent eyes spoke for her. 

After having accomplished, with the aid of 
God, this charming work, the Marquise de Latour- 
Mesnil would have asked nothing better than to 
rest, as she certainly had a right to do; but 
repose is not for mothers, and the Marquise soon 
became the prey of a feverish anxiety which 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


25 


many of our readers will comprehend. Jeanne 
Bérengère had attained her nineteenth birthday, 
and it was necessary to begin to think of provi- 
ding her with a husband. This is undeniably a 
momentous hour for mothers. That they are 
greatly troubled and deeply anxious is not what 
surprises us ; it is that they are not even more 
deeply exercised in mind. But, if any mother 
does experience intense anxiety at this critical 
moment, it is one who, like Madame de Latour- 
Mesnil, has reared her daughter carefully and 
well ; one who, in moulding this youthful body 
and soul with reverent hands, has refined, puri- 
fied and, so to speak, spiritualized the instincts of 
her precious charge. Such a mother must feel 
and know that a young girl, so pure and perfect 
in character, is separated from most of the men 
who frequent our streets and even our salons by 
an intellectual and spiritual abyss as wide as that 
which separates her from a negro of Zululand. 
She must inevitably admit, at least to herself, that 


26 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


to give her daughter to one of these men is to 
condemn her to the worst of mesalliances and to 
degrade her own work. Her responsibility, too, 
in such a case is the heavier since French customs 
give young girls no opportunity to assume any 
important part in the momentous transaction of 
choosing their husbands, and, with a very few 
exceptions, they at once fall in love with the 
man who has been selected for their future hus- 
band, simply because their imagination endows 
him with all the qualities they would have him 
possess. 

So Madame de Latour-Mesnil had good reason 
to feel anxious to marry her daughter well. But 
it would be difficult to understand what a really 
virtuous and spirituelle woman like the Marquise 
really means by such an expression, if one did 
not see every day that the most unfortunate per- 
sonal experience, the deepest maternal love, the 
keenest discernment and even the most profound 
piety do not suffice to teach mothers the differ- 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


27 


ence between a fine marriage and a good mar- 
riage. One may, of course, make both at the 
same time, and assuredly nothing could be better, 
but great care is needed, since a fine marriage 
is often the reverse of a good one, because it 
frequently dazzles and, consequently, blinds. 

A fine marriage for a young person who is to 
bring, like Mademoiselle de Latour-Mesnil, a 
dowry of five hundred thousand francs to her hus- 
band, means a marriage of three or four millions. 
Really, it seems as if a woman might possibly be 
happy with less ; still, it must be admitted that 
it is difficult to refuse four millions when they 
are offered to you, and Baron de Maurescamp 
offered six or seven to Mademoiselle de Latour- 
Mesnil, through the intervention of a mutual 
friend who occupied a high position in society. 

Madame de Latour-Mesnil replied with becom- 
ing dignity that she was greatly flattered by this 
proposal, but that she, nevertheless, must ask a 
few days for reflection and consideration. But, 


28 


THE HISTORY OP A PARISIENNE. 


as soon as the ambassadress had left the drawing- 
room, she rushed to her daughter’s apartments, 
strained her wildly to her heart and burst into 
tears. 

“ So you have a husband for me ? ” asked 
Jeanne, fixing her large, impassioned eyes on 
her mother, who made a sign in the affirmative. 

“ Who is the gentleman ? ” inquired Jeanne. 

“ Baron de Maurescamp. Ah ! my child, it 
seems almost too good to be true.” 

Accustomed to regard her mother as infallible, 
and seeing her so delighted, Mademoiselle Jeanne 
soon became equally so, and the two poor crea- 
tures mingled their tears and their kisses for a 
long time. 

During the week that followed, which Madame 
de Latour-Mesnil honestly intended to devote 
to a careful investigation of Baron de Maures- 
camp’ s character, she was really occupied almost 
exclusively in closing her eyes and ears, so 
she might discover nothing that would disturb 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 29 

her dreams. Moreover, she received from her 
relatives and friends such enthusiastic congratu- 
lations on the subject of this splendid match, 
and she read so much anger and jealousy in the 
eyes of rival mothers, that her approbation was 
only strengthened. So Baron de Maurescamp 
was formally accepted. 

Much more absurd marriages are often con- 
tracted, for instance, those which are concluded, 
after a single interview in some theatre loge, 
between two unknown persons who will know 
one another far too well later. Madame de 
Latour-Mesnil and her daughter had, at least 
met Baron de Maurescamp on several occa- 
sions in society. They were not intimately 
acquainted with him, by any means, but they 
had seen him, occasionally at the play and in 
the Bois. They knew his name and knew his 
horses. That was something. 

Baron de Maurescamp, moreover, was not 
without his attractions. He was a man about 


30 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


thirty years of age, who held quite a prominent 
position in Parisian society. He inherited his 
title from his grandfather, a general under the 
First Empire, and his fortune from his father, 
who had acquired it honorably in manufacturing. 
He, himself, thanks to his title, held several very 
agreeable sinecure positions in prominent finan- 
cial companies. An only son and a millionaire, 
he had been spoiled by his mother, his servants 
and his friends. His confidence in himself, his 
invulnerable assurance and his large fortune 
invested him with no little importance in the eyes 
of the world, and he ylid not lack admirers. At 
his club, his opinions were listened to with con- 
siderable respect. He was exceedingly skeptical 
and blasé, and treated everything not of a prac- 
tical nature with cold and ironical disdain, being 
in reality profoundly ignorant on all other sub- 
jects, and he spoke in a loud and pompous voice, 
and with considerable arrogance and intolerance 
of manner. He had formed some rather com- 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 31 

monplace ideas concerning matters and things in 
general, particularly in regard to women, whom 
he despised. These ideas he classified into prin- 
ciples and systems, simply because they had the 
honor to belong to him. “ I make it my rule — 
It is one of my principles — It is a theory of mine 
— This is my system ! ” Such expressions were 
constantly upon his lips. Had he been poor, 
he would have been only a very ordinary man ; 
rich, he was a fool. 

His choice of Mademoiselle de Latour-Mesnil 
for a wife may seem strange on first thought, but 
it was chiefly vanity, though not a little calcu- 
lation, that influenced him. Parisian society 
declared Mademoiselle Latour-Mesnil to be a very 
accomplished young lady. Being in the habit of 
refusing himself nothing and of appropriating 
the best of everything, it seemed to him a fine 
thing to secure possession of this rare flower. 
Besides, it was one of his theories that the best 
way to ensure domestic happiness is to marry 


! 


32 THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 

a young girl of superior education, nor was this 
a bad idea; but Baron de Maurescamp was 
entirely ignorant of the fact that to take one of 
these choice flowers from the maternal conserva- 
tory and transplant it successfully into married 
life, one must be a horticulturist of the highest 
order. 

Physically, Baron de Maurescamp was a large 
and handsome man, with a rather too ruddy 
complexion and rather cumbrous elegance of 
manner. Strong as a bull, he seemed to desire 
to increase his strength indefinitely ; he exer- 
cised with the dumb-bells every morning, prac- 
tised fencing, bathed twice a day in ice cold 
water, and displayed a gigantic chest in his low 
vests with unmistakable pride. 

Such was the man to whom Madame de Latour- 
Mesnil thought it safe and wise to confide the 
destiny of her angelic daughter. She had, it is 
true, an excuse which is that of many mothers 
under similar circumstances : she was a little in 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 33 

love with her future son-in-law, towards whom 
she felt very favorably disposed on account of 
the honor he had conferred upon her daughter. 
She thought him uncommonly intelligent and 
discerning since he had known how to appreciate 
the mind of her daughter, and considered him a 
very honorable and delicate man for having pre- 
ferred in the perspn of her child beauty and 
merit to more positive attractions. 

As for Jeanne herself, she was naturally inclined, 
as we have said, to accept her mothers choice 
with all confidence. She was, moreover, like all 
young girls, quite ready to enrich with her affec- 
tion the first man who was permitted to love her, 
to adore him in her own imagination, to reflect 
upon him her own moral beauty, and to trans- 
figure him, in short, with her own pure radiance. 

It must be acknowledged that Baron de Mau- 
rescamp, once admitted on the footing of a lover, 
held his ground by means of the attentions 
and demeanor that young girls expect from a 
2 


34 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


pleasing admirer. All fashionable young men with 
well-filled purses, who are in love, are very much 
alike. Bonbons, bouquets and jewels are essentials 
in their eyes. Moreover, even the least romantic 
instinctively feel that certain concessions to the 
ideal are necessary on such occasions, and not 
unfrequently men may be heard to grow eloquent 
in the presence of their sweethearts, for the first 
and last time in their lives, as one speaks a 
special language to children or to little dogs 
whose favor one desires to gain. 

This phase of illusion and enchantment was 
prolonged through the courtship, and even to 
the subdued splendors of the marriage cere- 
mony. At that supreme moment, kneeling 
before the grand altar of Sainte-Clotilde, in the 
midst of the rare plants that adorned it and 
under the starry light of the candles, with her 
hand clasped in that of her husband, and her 
heart overflowing with grateful piety and happy 
love, Jeanne-Bérengère’s soul soared to Heaven. 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


35 


It is scarcely too much to declare that, for at 
least three-quarters of the women in the world, 
marriage, with the exception of these delightful 
hours, is a disappointment. But the word disap- 
pointment is very weak, when we have to express 
what an exquisitely attuned heart and soul must 
experience in conjugal relations with a vulgar 
man. In regard to the best mode of pleasing 
women, and of attaching them to their husbands, 
Baron de Maurescamp had theories which it 
would be scarcely proper to expound. 


36 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


CHAPTER II. 

DISAPPOINTMENT. 

FTER the first few days, there was a slight 



-£jL coldness in the relations of the newly- 
Avedded pair. With her, it was the bitterness of 
finding love and passion so different from what 
she had expected ; with him, it was the dissatis- 
faction of a handsome man who does not find 
himself appreciated ; but Madame de Maures- 
camp, in spite of the wild tumult that was raging 
in her heart, always displayed to her mother 
and the public that serene and unruffled brow 
which invariably astonishes us in brides, and which 
certainly proves great power of womanly dissimu- 
lation. The organization of her new and superb 
establishment on the Avenue de l’Alma, the 
bewildering round of fêtes that followed her 
marriage, the luxury of her household, her equi- 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


37 


pages and her toilets, all undoubtedly aided her 
— for she was a woman — in passing the time 
immediately succeeding her wedding without too 
much discouragement and unhappiness. But 
luxury and splendor, besides not being very new 
to the daughter of Madame de Latour-Mesnil, 
are pleasures that quickly pall. Moreover, she 
had lived with her mother in a too elevated 
region to be content with a merely fashionable 
existence, and in the midst of this whirlpool of 
pleasure she experienced, every now and then, an 
intense longing for something higher. The most 
fondly cherished dream of her youth had been 
to continue with her husband, in the closest and 
tenderest union of souls, the ideal life into which 
her mother had initiated her by sharing with him 
her reading, thoughts and reflections upon all 
subjects, her beliefs and her enthusiasm in the 
presence of the grand scenes of nature or the 
great achievements of genius. 

It is easy to understand how little fitted 


38 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


Baron de Maurescamp was for such a commun- 
ion. This ideal life, so salutary for every one 
and so necessary to women, he declined not 
only from coarseness and ignorance but from 
principle. For, on this subject, too, he had a 
theory. It was that a romantic mind was the 
real and only cause of a woman’s fall. Conse- 
quently, he believed that everything which tends 
to stimulate the imagination — poetry, music, art 
in all its forms and even religion — should be 
permitted only in the smallest doses. More than 
once his young wife endeavored to interest him 
in what interested her. She had a charming 
voice, and she sang him some of her favorite 
airs, but if her singing became a little impas- 
sioned, he would cry, boisterously : 

“No, no, none of that! Not so much expres- 
sion, my dear, or I shall certainly faint ! ” 

She was very fond of the English poets and 
novelists ; she enthusiastically praised Tennyson 
whom she adored, and attempted to translate a 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


39 


passage ; but Baron de Maurescamp, in the same 
boisterous manner, instantly began to utter cries 
of “ Enough,” and to pound upon the piano with 
both hands so he would not hear her. It was in 
this way that he intended to disgust her with 
poetry, but he was certainly much more likely to 
disgust her with prose. At the theatre, at the 
various exhibitions and entertainments, and in 
travelling, he indulged in the same sneers and 
atrocious witticisms on all subjects that awakened 
deep emotion in the mind of his wife. Hence 
Madame de Maurescamp soon fell into a habit of 
concealing all the feelings that are life itself to 
all generous and sensitive souls ; and, seeing no 
more flames without, Baron de Maurescamp per- 
suaded himself that the inward fire was extin- 
guished and glorified himself and his method 
accordingly. 

“ Some women are always up in the clouds,” 
he remarked one day to his friends at the club, 
“ and it invariably brings them to grief. I took 


40 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


my wife young, and have stifled anything like 
romantic folly. Now she is tranquil in mind, 
and so am I. Ah ! mon dieu ! a woman should run 
about, visit the shops, lunch with her friends, ride 
and hunt. That is the sort of life for a woman : 
it leaves her no time to think ; but if she 
remains at home moping in a corner with Chopin 
or Tennyson, there is no hope ; you might as well 
give up. That is my theory.” 

It was impossible for the ineffioacy of this 
theory and the general intellectual poverty of her 
husband to escape a discerning mind like that 
of Madame de Maurescamp, so she was not long 
the dupe of her husband’s important tone and 
authoritative manner. Men do not always know 
their wives, but wives always have a thorough 
knowledge of their husbands. A year had not 
passed before the last veil had fallen, the last 
vestige of illusion been destroyed, and Madame 
de Maurescamp was forced to admit that she was 
bound for life to a man whose instincts were low 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


41 


and whose mind was a blank ; but she had a 
horror of having it known that she despised her 
husband. A woman w T ho remains an amiable 
and submissive wife, after such a discovery, 
deserves a great deal of credit. Madame de 
Maurescamp displayed this commendable virtue, 
but to acquire it she was often obliged to remind 
herself that she was a Christian, that is to say, 
that she belonged to a religious faith which loves 
and rewards patience and self-sacrifice. 

Nevertheless, she was greatly delighted by an 
event which occurred about two years after her 
marriage and which, while promising her precious 
consolation, also assured her comparative solitude 
and independence in her domestic life. The birth 
of a son gave her the only pure and satisfying 
joy she had tasted since the day of her nuptials; 
the only happiness, indeed, that realized the 
anticipations she had formed in connection with 
her marriage. 

Madame de Maurescamp, as we can very 


42 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


readily understand, desired to be always with 
her child, and she fulfilled her duty with the 
greater pleasure since it enabled her to gain yet 
more time, and to enjoy a life of quiet and repose 
that suited her marvellously well. It was about 
this period that Baron de Maurescamp was sur- 
prised to see his wife come down to dinner with 
a coiffure à la Titus. She had had her magnifi- 
cent hair cut short on the plea that it was falling 
out, which was not true, but she hoped that this 
painful sacrifice, by rendering her less attractive, 
would spare her even greater sacrifices. She had 
counted without her host. Baron de Maures- 
camp considered the coiffure extremely novel 
and becoming; so the poor creature had her 
labor for her pains, and could only let her hair 
grow again. 

But the deliverance for which she was longing 
in her secret heart was about to come, and from 
a source where she least expected it. A noble 
and attractive woman like herself was well calcu- 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 43 

lated to inspire, as well as to feel, the deepest, 
most ardent and most lasting of passions ; and 
was well worthy of a place among the immortal 
lovers whose imperishable love has been made 
famous by legends and history, but Baron de 
Maurescamp’s love contained no imperishable ele- 
ment; it was, to use an expression of the day, 
a realistic love, and realistic loves, though they 
bear little resemblance to a rose in other respects, 
are extremely short lived. He had not hesitated 
to say for sometime that he had married a statue 
that was very pleasing to the eye, but whose cold- 
ness would have discouraged Pygmalion himself ; 
but, in his secret heart, Baron de Maurescamp, 
who was naturally of a jealous disposition, was 
not displeased at a circumstance that seemed to 
him a strong guaranty of domestic security, and 
as he occupied more agreeably elsewhere most of 
the time, a gradual estrangement, which the wife 
made no effort to overcome, separated the pair 
even more irrevocably. 


44 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


CHAPTER III 


AN ILLUSION .DESTROYED 



HEN a woman renounces all claim to her 


husband’s love, it is not always prudent 


to conclude, as did Baron de Maurescamp, that 
she renounces love in general. After the first 
disenchantments of an ill-assorted union, a wo- 
man recovers from the shock and takes counsel 
with herself. She often resumes her interrupted 
dream, once more enthrones her tottering ideal, 
and says to herself, not without justice, that 
it is quite unlikely the world would make such 
an ado about love without reason, and that it is 
impossible this grand passion, with which history 
and fable teem, and which has been chanted by 
all the poets, and glorified by all the arts, should 
be only a vain and disappointing chimera; she 
cannot believe that such homage was rendered 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


45 


to a vulgar divinity, and that so many magnificent 
altars should have been erected in every age 
to a commonplace idol. So, in spite of every- 
thing, love continues to be the subject that chiefly 
excites her curiosity and holds possession of her 
mind. She knows that it exists, that others have 
known it, and it is difficult for her to resign hér- 
self to living and dying without knowing it also. 

It is certainly dangerous for a woman to retain 
and cherish, after the disappointments common to 
marriage, this ideal of an unknown love ; but 
there is a greater danger, and that is to lose it. 

About this time, Madame Maurescamp con- 
tracted an intimate friendship with Madame 
d’Hermany, who was her senior by two or three 
years. Friendship is the natural resource of a 
good woman, whose heart is empty. Though 
pleased with her freshly acquired independence, 
Jeanne de Maurescamp was only twenty-four, and 
her soul shrank in terror from the long years of 
grief and loneliness that stretched before her. 


46 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


Neither her mother, whom she was unwilling to 
grieve by even seeming to blame her, nor her 
son, who was still too young to engross much of 
her attention, nor even her religious faith, which 
was already shaken by the ironical indifference 
of the world, could satisfy the intense longing 
she felt for a sympathizer and counsellor ; hence, 
she abandoned herself to this new friendship, that 
seemed to her both a consolation and a safeguard, 
with all the tender ardor of her enthusiastic 
nature. 

This Madame d’Hermany, whom she honored 
with her affection, was an extremely attractive per- 
son. She belonged to the rare and exquisite type 
of perfect blondes. Without being tall, she was 
imposing by reason of the very faultlessness of 
her beauty, the strange brilliancy of her dark blue 
eyes, and the intellectual light that shone upon 
her serene brow and the strange expression of 
intense disdain that lurked in the corners of her 
finely cut lips. She had been very unfortunate, it 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 47 

was said, and in some respects her destiny had 
been not unlike that of Madame de Maurescainp. 
Like her, she had married with culpable thought- 
lessness ; like her, too, she had arrived, though 
by a different road, at that amicable estrangement 
so frequent in fashionable households. She had 
married her cousin, a young man who was quite 
attractive in appearance, but who had the tastes 
and habits of a scoundrel. Rumor stated that he 
had not only continued his dissipated life after his 
marriage, but that he had forced his wife to share 
it, perhaps out of a malicious perversity that is not 
wanting in the world, perhaps simply from sheer 
folly. He had taken her with him into all the fêtes 
of a forbidden world, to racing breakfasts and res- 
taurant suppers. It was said that at one of these 
suppers at which a foreign prince was present, the 
young wife, incensed at the freedom of language 
indulged in before her, had boxed the ears of 
one of the company ; some declared the husband 
to have been the victim, others asserted that it 


48 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


was the foreign prince. However that may have 
been, after this famous rebuff, whether he was, 
or was not, the recipient, Monsieur d’Hermany 
had requested her to consider herself a widow. 
To tell the truth, he was rather glad of the occur- 
rence than otherwise, for his wife, whose over- 
whelming superiority asserted itself in such an 
unmistakable manner, inspired him with such 
fear that he was always obliged to drink himself 
into a state of partial intoxication in order to 
gain courage to enter her presence. 

This story, which partook somewhat of the 
nature of history, had reached the ears of Ma- 
dame de Maurescamp, who added to it all that 
„ would impart increased interest to the rôle 
Madame d’Hermany had played. She pictured 
her as a pure and sensitive young girl plunged 
into the most depraved society, she fancied her 
emerging indignant and stainless, and she liked 
to encircle her friend’s lovely brow with the 
aureole that played around the heads of young 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


49 


Christian martyrs. Touched and flattered by 
this worship, Madame d’Hermany returned 
Jeanne’s affection with real sincerity. Witty, 
highly educated, and artistic in her tastes, she 
was fully capable of appreciating Madame Mau- 
rescamp’s merits, and of being a congenial com- 
panion. She soon became acquainted with all 
Jeanne’s secrets, and Jeanne supposed she knew 
all hers. They soon became inseparable : they 
made calls and shopped together, they occupied 
the same box at the opera and at the theatre, 
they attended the races at Sorbonne in company 
and, when summer came, they both established 
themselves at Deauville in the same villa. 

Here an incident occurred that made a deep 
impression upon Madame de Maurescamp’s mind. 

Though their demeanor was characterized by 
the strictest propriety, the two lovely friends led 
a fashionable life and were naturally surrounded 
by admirers. Such a charming team, as Monsieur 
d’Hermany elegantly remarked, could not fail to 
3 


50 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


attract admiration. Their acquaintances peo- 
pled the coast from Trouville to Cobourg; and 
Baron de Maurescamp and Monsieur d’Her- 
many, with the usual intelligence of husbands, 
always brought some friends down with them 
on Saturday evening. The homage of all these 
admirers was accepted in a manner equally 
removed from prudery and familiarity, and with 
the quiet and laughing ease that is a character- 
istic of fashionable women. In the evening, 
when Madame de Maurescamp and Madame 
d’Hermany were left alone after the departure 
of their visitors, they amused themselves, before 
retiring to their rooms, by passing in satirical 
review the aspirants of the day. It was what 
they styled the “ Slaughter of the Innocents.” 
Madame d’Hermany displayed actual ferocity on 
such occasions. Among those she ridiculed most 
severely was a young man named Saville, who 
was generally known as “ the handsome Saville,” 
and whom she declared to be the most stupid 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


51 


leader of the German it had ever been her luck 
to meet. Madame de Maurescamp, who was 
more lenient in her judgments, thought him a 
handsome, good-hearted youth, whereupon 
Madame d’Hermany laughingly accused her of 
having a boarding-school girl’s fondness for boys. 
As for her, even if she had not had good reason 
to be disgusted forever with love and lovers, she 
could never care for any save a mature man, and 
she then proceeded to draw of this mature man, 
whom she might have loved, a stern and magis- 
terial portrait, which fortunately resembled no 
one. 

One evening toward the close of the month of 
August, Jeanne de Maurescamp retired to her 
room to write to her mother before going to 
bed. It was more than an hour after midnight 
when she finished her epistle. The night was 
threatening, and, on approaching a window, she 
saw several magnificent flashes of lightning 
traverse the horizon and silently descend into 


52 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


the sea, and at intervals the rumbling of distant 
thunder, like the roar of a lion in some Afri- 
can desert, broke the stillness. Knowing that 
Madame d’Hermany enjoyed these sublime spec- 
tacles in nature as thoroughly as she did herself, 
and supposing her still up, (she had told her that 
she, too, would be writing that evening), she 
descended to the floor below and rapped gently 
at her friend’s door. Receiving no reply, she 
concluded that Madame d’Hermany was asleep, 
and the idea of going down alone to the drawing- 
room, the better to see the play of the lightning 
upon the ocean, flashed across her mind. But 
when on opening the drawing-room door, candle 
in hand, she saw in the dim light two human 
forms, she uttered a faint cry of terror which 
she instantly stifled on recognizing Madame 
d’Hermany, who sprang towards her and seized 
her by the wrist, hastily ejaculating : “ Hush ! ” 

Then turning to a young man who was standing 
in the middle of the room, she exclaimed : “ Go, 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


53 


go at once.” The gentleman bowed and departed 
through the garden. It was “ the handsome 
Sa ville.” 

Madame de Maurescamp, in her intense aston- 
ishment at this two-fold revelation, dropped her 
candle, the flame of which was instantly extin- 
guished ; then, after a few seconds of motionless 
stupor, she sank upon a divan, covered her face 
with her hands and began to sob bitterly. 

In the meantime, Madame d’Hermany was 
excitedly pacing the room. Suddenly pausing 
before Jeanne, she exclaimed : 

“ So you took me for a saint ? ” 

“ Yes,” replied Jeanne, simply. 

Madame d’Hermany shrugged her shoulders 
and took a few steps; then, turning abruptly, 
she exclaimed : “ Why should you have believed 
it ? How could you have thought for a moment 
that I could traverse with impunity the slough 
into which my wretched husband has dragged 
me?” 


54 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


Jeanne made no reply ; she was oppressed by 
a terrible feeling of suffocation. 

“Are you suffering, my child ?” continued 
Madame d’Hermany. 

“ Terribly.” 

“ Come out into the air, come.” 

She took her friend’s hand, forcibly lifted her 
and dragged her out upon the piazza where she 
made her seat herself, while she remained standing 
a few steps from her, leaning against one of the 
columns that supported the roof. Her eyes were 
riveted upon the sea, over which the lightning 
was still flashing at intervals. After a long 
silence, she again spoke : 

“ You are mad, my poor Jeanne. You are 
mad, as I have been, and as we all are at our 
entrance into life. My husband, after all, has 
rendered me a service without intending to do so. 
He has cured me of my fancies, and irretrievably 
destroyed my ideal. The truth is, my dear, we 
are absurdly reared. These ethereal educations 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


55 


give ns entirely erroneous ideas of life. There 
is nothing on earth or in Heaven, I fear, that cor- 
responds with the idea of happiness that is 
taught us. We are reared like pure, disembodied 
spirits, and we are only women — daughters of 
Eve — nothing more. We are obliged to back- 
slide, or to die without having lived. Ah ! Good 
heavens ! No one ever began life with a purer 
soul than mine, I assure you, or with more gen- 
erous fancies, or loftier aspirations. And what 
has been the result, what ? I discovered, a 
little sooner than the majority of people, thanks 
to my admirable husband — I discovered that 
all this was impracticable and unreal, that 
no one understood me, that I was speaking a lan- 
guage unknown in our planet, in short that I was 
the only one of my species — so it became neces- 
sary to resign myself to the inevitable, and accept 
the only real pleasures that this world of ours 
affords us. After dreaming of an exalted passion 
I have contented myself with an ordinary one, 


56 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


because there are no others, because one must 
fulfil one’s destiny — and a woman’s destiny 
is to love and be loved. That is all, my dear ! 
What can you expect ? Is not that what you are 
thinking? I can read it in your large eyes, 
with each passing lightning flash. What a tragical 
scene it is, to be sure : the sky and the sea on 
fire, and I standing here with hair streaming in 
the wind, baring my head to the thunderbolt ! 
Very poetical, is it not ? ” 

“ Why do you tell me, then?” asked Jeanne, 
who had regained a little calmness during this 
strange tirade. 

“ How do I know ? ” replied Madame d’ Her- 
many. “ Ah ! thank Heaven, here comes the rain! ” 

She darted down the three or four low steps, 
exposing her head to the rain which was begin- 
ning to fall with great violence. At the same 
time, she shook back her long tresses, caught 
some of the great drops in her two hands and 
bathed her hot forehead. 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


57 


’ “Pray come in, Louise,” said Madame de 
Maurescamp, gently. 

She slowly remounted the steps, and, pausing 
before Jeanne, said in a curt, almost haughty 
tone : 

“We must bid each other adieu, I suppose.” 

“ And why ? ” replied Jeanne, rising. “ I do 
not aspire to reform the world. I only ask that 
you will never again speak to me of your love 
affairs or mine. On all other matters we under- 
stand each other and agree very well. Your 
friendship will be a great resource to me, and I 
hope that mine will be a benefit to you.” 

Madame d’Hermany drew her impetuously to 
her and embraced her. 

“ Thank you,” she whispered softly. 

They went up to their rooms. Two hours 
later, the dawn found Jeanne seated upon the 
foot of her bed, her cheeks yet wet with tears, 
and her eyes fixed upon vacancy. 


58 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


CHAPTER IV. 


a mother’s stratagem. 

HERE is nothing that depresses the soul so 



JL deeply as the discovery of the unworthiness 
of those who were to us the personification of 
goodness and honor, whether they be our parents, 
our friends or our instructors. When we cease 
to esteem those upon whom we had bestowed our 
confidence and respect, we are inclined to doubt 
the very virtues with which our imaginations had 
endowed them. False idols make us distrust 
even religion itself. 

It was through this specious but essentially 
human reasoning that Madame de Maurescamp, 
after becoming bitterly conscious of her friend’s 
unworthiness, fell into a state of doubt and 
discouragement that was as painful as it was 
dangerous. Though she was too proud to sud- 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 59 

denly break off an intimacy which had been so 
dear and so public, she was none the less conscious 
that this friendship no longer existed. She had 
undoubtedly loved Madame d’Hermany for her 
real qualities, but far more for those with which 
her imagination had invested her. The radiant 
aureole she had placed around her brow had 
faded forever. She might have forgiven her a 
passion, even a guilty passion, had the object 
justified it. She would have pardoned her had 
the acquaintance been a Petrarch, a Dante or a 
Goethe, but she could not forgive her “ the hand- 
some Saville.” She could not forgive her for her 
hypocritical attempt to cover him with ridicule ; 
above all, she could not forgive her for her 
attempt to demoralize her, by declaring her per- 
nicious theories with all the pride of a demon, 
and still less could she pardon her now that she 
felt her friend had partially succeeded, and that 
the poison had insidiously made its way into her 


own veins. 


60 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


Under the influence of this fresh disenchant- 
ment, Jeanne de Maurescamp took out with her 
into the world fewer illusions than formerly. She 
watched what was going on around her with 
more experienced eyes ; many reports that she 
had previously regarded as calumnies now seemed 
worthy of credence ; many acquaintances whom 
she had considered innocent suddenly became 
tainted with suspicion. After having supposed 
that there were many more good people in the 
world than there really are, she began to think 
that there were none at all. She began to 
wonder if it was not, indeed, with her, as 
Madame d’Hermany had said, if she was not 
the only one of her species, and if her feel- 
ings and her theories in regard to life, and 
particularly in regard to love, were not merely 
the result of an artificial education, and of an 
imagination led astray by the subtle falsehoods 
of the poets, and if what was commonly called 
enjoyment was not, indeed, better than nothing. 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 61 

It is a touching sight to see a conscientious 
woman, arrived at this almost inevitable stage 
in worldly life, struggling bravely with herself, 
and on the point of abruptly falling from a too 
elevated to a too contemptuous opinion of the 
human race. 

In addition to the philosophers, there are always 
a goodly number of curious persons who care- 
fully watch all the little dramas they see in 
progress around them. The world is full of 
people who have nothing better to do, who, 
moreover, hope to profit in some manner by the 
denouement, and who, therefore, do their best to 
hasten it. One of the cleverest of this class at 
that time was the Viscount Monthelin, well known 
in the fashionable circles of Paris. Monsieur de 
Monthelin devoted his attention exclusively to 
love affairs, and this was greatly in his favor in 
the eyes of the fair sex. He did not play cards, 
or smoke, or frequent the club, and, when all 
the other gentlemen repaired to the smoking- 


62 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


room after dinner, he remained with the ladies. 
All this gave him a great advantage which he 
delighted to abuse. He was no longer young, 
but he was still elegant in appearance and a 
capital talker, with an exceedingly chivalrous 
manner, and a heart which was a veritable nest 
of corruption. He had devoted his already quite 
extended life to the discovery and undoing of ill- 
assorted couples. This was his specialty. Two 
or three duels, one of them an encounter with 
Count Jacques de Lerne, who had styled him 
“ the drawing-room shark,” had added the finish- 
ing touch to his reputation. 

During the winter that followed the season 
passed by the two friends at Deauville, it became 
evident that Monsieur Monthelin regarded Mad- 
ame de Maurescamp as his next victim. It was 
seen that he had succeeded in strengthening the 
ties of friendship that united him to Baron de 
Maurescamp, even while contracting the circle 
of his operations around the wife. His calls 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


63 


at her house towards evening became more 
frequent ; he managed to pass her every morn- 
ing in the Bois, and invariably presented himself 
at her box on Wednesday at the Opera, and on 
Tuesday at the Français. 

In her deep mental prostration and despairing 
loneliness, Jeanne submitted almost without an 
inward protest to the fascination which a man’s 
fixed and determined will generally exercises 
over her sex. She felt herself gradually yielding 
to a sort of vertigo in the midst of the cunning 
and continuous evolutions that Monsieur de Mon- 
thelin was describing around her, and she soon 
began to grant him the favors which are gener- 
ally the prelude to a complete abandonment. 
Thus she fell into a habit of acquainting him 
with the visits she intended to pay, and with the 
houses where he could meet her during the day; 
she also indicated the hours when he would be 
most likely to find her alone ; at balls, as he did 
not dance, she reserved some sitting dances for 


64 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


him, that is to say opportunities for a tête-à-tête 
behind a fan in the shadow of a curtain or under 
the palm-trees in the conservatory. For want of 
something better, these little manœuvres caused 
her a sort of excitement that occupied her mind, 
and the sense of danger, by its agitating effect 
upon her nerves, led her to imagine that her 
heart was really interested. In short, our noble 
and unfortunate Jeanne was on the eve of a most 
commonplace flirtation, when a new personage 
appeared upon the scene. 

It was a woman, an elderly woman — -the Coun- 
tess de Lerne — the mother of the same Jacques 
de Lerne who had been wounded in the duel with 
Monsieur Monthelin some years before. Madame 
de Lerne had always been an unprincipled woman, 
but spitefulness was not one of her faults, though 
she had plenty of natural shrewdness. She had 
shown the good taste not to become a prude after 
having been more than a coquette. Her charity 
for the weaknesses she herself had known, her 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


65 


good humor, her excellent judgment, and her 
rank and fortune assured her a wide-spread popu- 
larity in spite of a recollection of the indiscretions 
of her youth. In her elegant drawing-room she 
without difficulty assembled the most distin- 
guished men in politics, literature and art ; and a 
limited number of pretty women were added to 
impart beauty to the scene. Jeanne de Maures-' 
camp, with her striking though refined beauty 
and her timid superiority, was one of the chief 
attractions of this model salon , and there were no 
attentions and flatteries that the old Countess did 
not lavish upon her to attract and detain her 
there. She had two reasons for this: the first, 
very laudable, was to increase the popularity of 
her receptions ; the second, less praiseworthy, was 
to involve her son in a flirtation with Madame 
de Maurescamp. 

She had lost the eldest of her sons, Guy de 
Lerne, seven or eight years before ; the second, 
Jacques, left Saint-Cyr when his brother died. 
4 


66 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


His mother being left alone, he had sent in his 
resignation in order to be with her. He was an 
exceedingly clever young man, who certainly 
would have been able, had he felt so inclined, to 
develop his natural gifts into positive talent. He 
painted charmingly in water colors, but he chiefly 
excelled in music, and some of his compositions — 
waltzes, cradle songs and symphonies — were 
really of a superior character. But, possibly 
from natural indolence, possibly from discourage- 
ment caused by his interrupted career, he had 
remained a mere amateur, and what was more had 
become a blasé man of the world. Except at his 
mothers house where duty detained him, he was 
seldom seen in fashionable society, which was not 
at all to his taste ; but he was often seen in lower 
circles where he appeared to enjoy himself 
extremely. 

Madame de Lerne, we must do her the justice 
to admit, had at first thought of inducing him to 
marry ; but this seemed so repugnant to him that 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


67 


she had fallen back upon the idea of interesting 
him in a friendship which would at least keep him 
out of bad company. For some little time she 
had had her eye on Jeanne de Maurescamp with a 
view to this commendable object, for that lady’s 
unfortunate conjugal experience had not escaped 
her keen observation, and, without entering into 
any embarrassing explanation with her son, she 
had kept this attractive person under his notice 
as much as possible, neglecting no opportunity to 
enlarge upon her perfections. But Jacques de 
Lerne, though evidently struck by Jeanne’s re- 
markable beauty and the superiority of her intel- 
lectual endowments, had as yet manifested only a 
rather careless curiosity, whereupon the Countess, 
who was watching the young wife attentively and 
who saw that she was becoming quite fond of 
Monsieur de Monthelin, resolved to strike a 
decisive blow, influenced partially by her son’s 
interest and partially by her hatred for the man 
who had nearly succeeded in killing him. 


68 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


So one morning she wrote to Jeanne, informing 
her that, unless she heard from her to the con- 
trary, she would call on her at three o’clock the 
same afternoon, as she had something of an 
agreeable as well as an important character to 
disclose to her. Jeanne, rather astonished at 
this show of mystery, awaited her arrival with 
considerable impatience. At the appointed hour 
she saw the lady enter her boudoir, followed by 
a footman laden with one of those dainty wicker 
baskets ornamented with embroidery, fringe 
and tassels, that are now made for pet dogs. 
The Countess herself held in her arms with 
maternal solicitude a tiny dog with long, silky 
hair, a miniature black and white spaniel, which 
was said to have been imported from Mexico, and 
which was the admiration and envy of connois- 
seurs. 

“ My dearest friend,” began Madame de Lerne, 
“ you have often told me that you were in love 
with Toby. Permit me to offer him to you with 
all respect.” 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


69 


“ Is it possible ! ” exclaimed Madame de Mau- 
rescamp. 

“I have long wondered what I could do to 
reward such a charming young creature as your- 
self, for your kindness and fidelity to an old 
woman,” resumed Madame de Lerne in her most 
caressing manner. “Such devotion is so rare 
that I am deeply touched by it, deeply touched, 
and I am very glad to find something that will 
please you, I assure you.” 

Jeanne did not very clearly recollect any occa- 
sion when she had manifested her admiration for 
Toby, but she appreciated the sacrifice her friend 
was making for her sake. 

“ Ah ! Madame, my dear Madame,” she ex- 
claimed, “how can I accept such a valuable 
present ? Toby is such a beautiful little creature. 
And what a sacrifice, and this beautiful basket, 
too ! No, really, really it is quite impossible — ” 

And to complete her sentence, the graceful 
young lady threw her arms around her friend’s 


70 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


neck and kissed her, which made Toby bark 
loudly. 

“ Come, my pet,” said Jeanne, taking him in 
her arms and covering him with caresses. 

The two ladies seated themselves, and Madame 
de Lerne answered all Jeanne’s eager questions 
in regard to the care and diet of this wonderful 
Toby. She then inquired concerning the health 
of Baron de Maurescamp. 

“ Though I really do not know why I should 
feel any solicitude on that score,” she continued. 
“ One has only to look at him, to see that his 
health is perfect. His is a superb physique, 
superb ! It does one good to see such a man.” 

“And how is your son?” inquired Jeanne. 

“ My son ? Ah ! he belongs to quite a different 
order. His is a truly artistic temperament, you 
know. If that were only all.” 

“ But he is a very good son,” Madame Maures- 
camp said gently. 

“ Oh ! certainly, he is a very good son ; there 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


71 


is no doubt about that. But tell me, my dear 
child, will you be at liberty to-morrow ? It is my 
reception day. Will you come and dine with us ? 
You will meet your friend, Madame d’Hermany.” 

“ Gladly ! I believe Baron de Maurescamp has 
no engagement.” 

“ Delightful ! I shall count upon both of you.” 

And Madame de Lerne rose as if to take her 
leave ; but, before doing so, she stopped to bid Toby 
good-bye, and this gave Madame de Maurescamp 
an opportunity for another display of gratitude. 
At last, the word for which Madame de Lerne was 
waiting, and which she had done her best to 
extort, fell from Jeanne’s lips. 

u Dear me ! what can I ever do to repay you ?” 

Madame de Lerne wheeled abruptly around, 
and, gazing upon her young friend with her 
most benevolent smile, quickly replied : 

“ Find my son a wife ! ” 

“ Ah ! that is an undertaking of which I feel 
myself utterly incapable,” responded Jeanne 
gayly- 


72 THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 

“And why?” returned Madame de Lerne in 
the same tone. “ On the contrary, I fancy you 
are more capable of the task than any person I 
know.” 

Jeanne opened wide two large, questioning 
eyes, without replying. 

“ Yes, I really mean it,” continued Madame 
de Lerne. “I am satisfied that my son would 
accept a wife from you more willingly than from 
any other person.” 

“ You certainly must be jesting, my dear 
Madame,” murmured Jeanne, still regarding her 
with the same air of surprise. 

“ I am not jesting, and if you had a sister who 
resembled you, I really believe the affair could 
be settled at once.” 

“ I do not understand you, I assure you,” said 
Jeanne. “ Your son scarcely knows me.” 

“ Excuse me — I really beg your pardon — he 
knows you thoroughly. My son is very obser- 
ving, very keen sighted. I know that he appreci- 
ates you thoroughly, and I am certain that you 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 73 

would have a great influence — a very great 
influence — over him in regard to this question of 
marriage, and if you should particularly recom- 
mend to him any young lady among your friends, 
I am certain he would take her with closed eyes. 
I am, upon my word.” 

“ I do not believe a syllable of it,” exclaimed 
Madame de Maurescamp. 

“ And I am sure of it. Try, and you will see.” 

Both ladies laughed heartily. 

“But, seriously,” resumed the Countess, “I 
wish you would think of it a little. Run over 
your list of friends and acquaintances. You 
would do me a great service, you would, indeed.” 

“ But first, I must tell you that I am terribly 
afraid of Monsieur Jacques.” 

“ What ! ” exclaimed the Countess, as if stu- 
pefied. 

“ It is the truth. He has such a mocking air, 
and he is so satirical; besides — ” 

She hesitated, and seemed considerably embar- 
rassed. 


74 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


“ Besides, he is a man of the world, I suppose 
you mean,” said Madame de Lerne, coming to 
her friend’s assistance. 

“ Dear me ! I do not know ; it is no business 
of mine.” 

“ Yes, he is a man of the world. I confess it, 
but he has a heart of gold, besides being the most 
agreeable of companions. Ah ! what a good 
work you would accomplish, my dear child, if 
you would assist me in freeing him from the 
clutches of that Lucy Mary, for it is Lucy Mary 
now, you know.” 

“ Indeed ! ” 

“ Yes, of the opera troupe ; she plays the part 
of a page. It is frightful, really frightful, my 
child. You will know how it is yourself when 
your own son grows up. In the meantime, try 
to induce mine to marry ; then all will be well. 
I repeat that, if there is any one in the world 
capable of performing this miracle, it is you. 
Good-bye, my dearest.” 

She kissed her, but, pausing near the door as 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


75 


she was about to depart, she added : “ You will 

say a word to him to-morrow evening, will you 
not?” 

“I will make the attempt,” Jeanne responded. 

The Countess de Lerne then withdrew, well 
satisfied with the opening of her campaign, and 
she had reason to be, since, for the first time in 
several months, Jeanne’s mind was occupied with 
some other man than Monsieur de Monthelin. 
She perfectly understood that Madame de Lerne 
by her insinuations and feigned reticence, had 
hoped to make her understand that she had a 
fervent admirer in the person of Jacques de 
Lerne. This revelation surprised and interested 
her, though she could not understand how such a 
state of things had been brought about. Fling- 
ing herself on the sofa, she racked her brain to 
recall occasions upon which she had met him, the 
words he had said to her, his manner, and the 
expression of his eyes, in order to find in these 
details something that would confirm the strange 
revelations made by the old Countess. It was 


76 THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 

true that this tall, sarcastic young man had 
always greatly intimidated her; she invariably 
felt ill at ease and nervous when he approached 
her; she thought she did remember, however, 
that he had treated her with a sort of exceptional 
deference, and that he had spared her the sar- 
castic jests he bestowed upon other women. 
She liked the idea of being respected by this 
blase man. She thought of his handsome but 
rather weary and haughty face, his penetrating 
eyes, and long, drooping moustache, and smiled 
at the idea of assuming maternal and protecting 
airs with this formidable personage who had been 
the terror of her youth, but she said to herself 
that she should certainly attempt it. 

As she sat absorbed in these reveries, smooth- 
« 

ing Toby’s large ears with her white hand the 
while, the door opened to admit the handsome 
form and blue -black side whiskers of Monsieur 
de Monthelin. 

Toby, who had never before seen this gentle- 
man, since Monsieur de Monthelin did not visit at 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 77 

Madame de Lerne’s house, evidently took him for 
a malefactor, but evinced no fear whatever. He 
sprang from the lap of his new mistress, and sta- 
tioned himself bravely before her, barking with 
all his might, and even snapping viciously at the 
intruder. Nothing so mars the graceful entrance 
of a gallant man, especially when he is a candi- 
date for the good graces of his hostess, as a little 
incident of this kind. Jeanne de Maurescamp, 
whose perceptive powers were unusually keen, 
could scarcely repress a smile at the contrast 
between the amiable air Monsieur de Monthelin 
strove to maintain and the evident disquietude 
Toby’s attack caused him. Thus Toby, though 
not a party to Madame de Lerne’s conspiracy, 
contributed in his humble way to ensure its 
success, for, after such a beginning, Monsieur 
Monthelin felt that a love scene was impossible ; 
so he confined himself to rather despondent 
allusions to matters of a sentimental character, 
and submitted to the necessity of caressing Toby, 
since it was not in his power to strangle him. 


78 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


CHAPTER V. 

THE OPENING OF THE SIEGE. 

I T was not without considerable inward trepi- 
dation that Jeanne de Maurescamp entered 
the carriage with her husband, the following day, 
to drive to the residence of the Countess de 
Lerne. She had been greatly exercised in mind 
in regard to her toilet, but had finally decided 
upon an austere costume which would be in har- 
mony with the part she was called upon to play 
that evening, and a plain velvet robe of a dark 
plum color was the dress selected, but, unfor- 
tunately, her bare arms and shoulders appeared 
almost dazzling in their whiteness in contrast 
with the rich, dark fabric, and she felt that this 
rather detracted from the severity of her appear- 
ance ; still, this was unavoidable. 

Her seat at the table was to the left of Jacques 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


79 


de Lerne, who had Madame d’Hermany on his 
right. As she was, to tell the truth, somewhat 
elated on account of Jacques' secret admiration 
for her, she soon came to the conclusion that 
this secret worship was rather too discreet. 
Monsieur de Lerne scarcely spoke to her, but 
devoted his entire attention to the neighbor on 
his right. For lack of anything better to do, 
Jeanne listened closely to their conversation, 
and heard Madame d’Hermany, after a spirited 
exchange of brilliant witticisms, suddenly re- 
proach Jacques for his bad habit of bestowing 
nicknames upon every one. 

“ I suppose you have one for me, as well,” she 
remarked. 

“ There is not the slightest doubt of it,” 
answered Jacques. 

“ And what is it ? ” inquired the lovely blonde, 
turning her angelic face full upon him. 

“ L'Eau Qui Dort : Sleeping Water,” replied 
Jacques in a low tone, as he bent over her. 


80 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


Madame d’Hermany blushed ; then, gazing at 
him with all the candid innocence of a young 
communicant, she asked : 

“ Why Sleeping Water ? ” 

“ For no special reason. It is an Indian 
name.” 

“And have I also a nickname, Monsieur?” 
inquired Jeanne. 

“ You ?” he answered. He fixed his eyes upon 
her, bowed slightly, and added in a serious tone : 
“No!” 

Then, seeing that she was a trifle embarrassed, 
he instantly changed the subject, and began 
to converse with her about the new plays, the 
museums and the foreign countries he had visited, 
apparently asking her questions only to have the 
pleasure of hearing her reply, and gazing at her 
with a grave and gentle air, as if to encourage 
her to do her best. 

Yes, decidedly, there was something extraordi- 
nary about all this. There was, certainly, in the 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


81 


manner of this person who was conversing with 
her an indefinable tincture of kindness and 
esteem, which he seemed to reserve for her alone. 
Why had she failed to notice this heretofore ? 
How strange it was ; the stranger, indeed, from 
the fact that she was not at all the kind of 
woman such a man would be likely to fancy. 
Still, it was very kind on his part, and from that 
moment Jeanne devoted herself with even greater 
earnestness and zeal to the task of marrying this 
young man who, in spite of his evil associates, 
yet possessed many commendable traits of char- 
-acter. She even passed in mental review the 
young ladies of her acquaintance, in the hope of 
finding one that would be likely to suit him, but 
failed in her efforts just at that moment. 

After dinner, several of the gentlemen repaired 
to the smoking room, and Monsieur de Lerne was 
following them, when his mother stopped him by 
saying : 

* “ Jacques, play your last waltz for Madame 

5 


82 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


Maurescamp before everybody arrives — she has 
never heard it. I am sure it will please her very 
much.” 

“Pray do, Monsieur / 9 said Jeanne. 

Monsieur de Lerne bowed and seated himself 
at the piano. He played his new waltz and sev- 
eral other pieces that Jeanne asked for. As 
usually happens in such cases, most of the 
guests, after devoting a few moments of polite 
attention to the music, resumed their conversation. 
Madame de Maurescamp alone remained near the 
piano, which stood at one end of the immense 
drawing-room. 

After the young man had finished a brilliant 
fantasia, and while his fingers were wandering 
aimlessly over the keys, Madame de Maurescamp 
decided that the proper moment had arrived. 

“What talent you possess !” she exclaimed; 
“ and you also paint very well, I am told.” 

“ I dabble in colors a little.” 

“How many strange and incomprehensible 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


83 


things there are in this world,” murmured Jeanne, 
as if talking to herself. 

“ Is there anything in me, Madame, that sug- 
gests this reflection ? ” 

“ Yes; you have all the tastes that are likely to 
attach a man to his home, and you live — at the 
club.” 

“ True ! ” responded Monsieur de Lerne. 

“Monsieur Jacques,” resumed Jeanne, plying 
her fan more rapidly. 

“ Madame ? ” 

“ You will think me extremely indiscreet — ” 

“ I am exceedingly indulgent.” 

“Your mother is very anxious to see you 
married.” 

“ I do not doubt it, Madame.” 

“ And you are not disposed to gratify her ? ” 

“ No, Madame ; not in the least.” 

“ Have you any reason for this unwillingness?” 

“ One only : I do not know a single woman in 
the world worthy of me.” 


84 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


“ Good heavens ! ” 

“ Pardon me/’ continued Jacques with the same 
gravity; “you are, of course, but you are not 
free, and besides — ” 

“Well?” insisted the lady, raising her eye- 
brows. 

“Well, even you are very foolish.” 

“ Monsieur Jacques ! ” 

“ Pardon me ; that is my opinion.” 

“And why?” asked Jeanne. 

“ Because you do not display much wisdom in 
the selection of your friends.” 

“ That means, I suppose, that I do wrong not 
to choose Monsieur Jacques de Lerne ? ” 

“No, certainly not; and yet, even as I am, I 
was born to understand and even to share the 
loves of the angels.” 

“ To speak frankly,” replied Madame de Mau- 
rescamp, jestingly, “if I am to believe public 
report, you know very little about the loves of 
the angels.” 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 85 

“ Believe me, Madame, I have been cruelly 
slandered.” 

“ Seriously, Monsieur, wbat are your reasons 
for your general contempt for our sex? Have 
you any in addition to the one you have men- 
tioned ? ” 

“ Yes, I have others,” replied Monsieur de 
Lerne. 

He uttered these words in such a peculiar tone 
that Jeanne cast a quick glance at him, and she 
was surprised at the almost agonized expression 
that had suddenly contracted his forehead and 
lips. 

“And formidable ones,” he added, with a 
forced smile. 

Then, in a tone of deep feeling, he continued : 

“You are a good and an honorable woman 
whom I profoundly esteem, but I cannot explain 
these reasons even to you.” 

She rose, a little embarrassed, remarking gayly, 
as she adjusted the folds of her dress : 


86 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


“ I really believe I am compromising myself 
by this protracted conversation.” 

He rose instantly and said : 

“ Pardon me for having detained you so long.” 

“ I do not despair yet,” she said smilingly, as 
she moved away. 

He bowed without making any reply. 

The long conversation between Madame de 
Maurescamp and Jacques had not failed to 
arouse the more or less good natured curiosity 
of Madame de Lerne’s guests. Jeanne saw this, 
and, to allay all suspicions, she remarked aloud 
to the Countess, as she passed her : 

“ There is no hope, my dear Madame. I have 
had my labor for my pains.” 

Jacques’ mother, who had been watching the 
faces of the pair from a distance with keen 
interest, was not of Jeanne’s opinion. On the 
contrary, she decided that the lady’s efforts had 
not been wasted, and that there was hope. 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


87 


CHAPTER VI. 

THE POWER OF SYMPATHY. 

H OW love is born is no secret, but the birth 
of sympathy is quite a different and far 
more mysterious matter. It is well nigh impossi- 
ble to seize upon the delicate and intricate 
threads that suddenly bind two hearts and minds 
together in this mysterious unity of feeling. 
Though feminine attractiveness is not without 
its influence, it is by no means indispensable, 
since sympathy often exists between persons of 
the same sex, and is not even dismayed by gray 
hairs. In what secret affinity of tastes, ideas, 
virtues or vices are we to search for the subtle 
cause of that sudden bond formed between two 
persons who are almost strangers, of that spirited 
interchange of impressions and meaning glances, 
that readiness to reveal one’s sentiments, and 


88 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


that longing to make a person of whom one 
knows little or nothing one’s confidant? We can- 
not say, but our readers have understood that 
Jacques de Lerne experienced it for Jeanne 
de Maurescamp, and that Jeanne, after their con- 
fidential conversation, was not far from sharing 
it. In spite of the immense distance that seemed 
to separate them, this man and this woman under- 
stood each other almost instantly, and, in spite of 
the difference in their characters, they felt that 
there was something in their secret souls that 
inclined them to the same impressions, the same 
opinions, the same views of life, the same joys 
and even the same griefs. 

These meetings with congenial persons are 
among the most delightful features of a worldly 
life; but, in the change and extent of Parisian 
relations, the pleasure often lasts only through a 
dinner or an evening entertainment. People are 
mutually pleased; they converse freely and 
enthusiastically together, reveal their secrets, and 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


89 


almost come to like each other ; then they part, 
not to meet again until the following year, when 
the acquaintance has to be begun over again. 
But this could scarcely be the case with Madame 
de Maurescamp and Jacques dfe Lerne. They 
belonged to the same world, and had the same 
circle of acquaintances ; hence they would neces- 
sarily be destined to resume their unfinished 
conversation without much delay. 

Besides, Monsieur de Lerne^ after reflecting on 
the subject for two or three days, came to the 
conclusion that he must pay Madame de Maures- 
camp a visit. Why did she wish him to marry ? 
What did it all mean ? In any case, such a desire 
on her part was a mark of personal interest 
that merited politeness and gratitude in return. 
So he called one evening about five o’clock, only 
to find Monsieur de Monthelin comfortably 
installed in the chimney corner. That gentleman, 
who had already had quite enough of Toby’s 
presence, was exasperated to such an extent by 


90 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


that of Monsieur de Lerne that he quite lost his 
wonted composure of manner. He persisted in 
prolonging his visit indefinitely, in defiance of all 
the rules of etiquette; so Jacques de Lerne was 
obliged to take his leave first, though he had been 
the last to arrive. Monsieur de Monthelin did 
not gain much by his obstinacy, for the excessive 
coldness with which Jeanne treated him after 
Jacques' departure warned him that he had been 
guilty of a blunder. To repair it, he made haste, 
as is usual, to commit a second : 

“ You seem annoyed at me because I did not 
give place to Monsieur de Lerne," he smilingly 
remarked. 

“And with justice," Jeanne replied. “You 
came before he did, and remain later. This 
gives you an air of proprietorship to which you 
have no claim, so far as I know." 

“ That is true. I beg a thousand pardons ; but 
you know sentiment does not reason." 

“ Then it does very wrong. Besides, it seems 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


91 


to me that your relations with Monsieur de Lerne 
are of an extremely delicate nature, since your 
duel with him.” 

“ That is also true ; but — ” 

“ By the way,” interrupted his hostess, “ what 
was the cause of that duel, if one may be allowed 
to ask ? ” 

“ Oh ! nothing — a mere trifle.” 

“ A trifle ! What was it ? ” 

“An insulting remark that was repeated to 
me!” 

“ Ah ! what remark ? Are you unwilling to 
tell me ? Do you prefer I should guess it ? ” 

“ Then you already know?” inquired Monsieur 
de Month elin. 

“ Certainly.” 

“ It was a vile slander, was it not ? ” 

“ No ; not altogether.” 

“ I hope he was not the person who repeated 
it to you, in any case ? ” 

“ He is much too honorable for that,” was 
Jeanne’s reply. 


92 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


Monsieur de Monthelin, seeing he was likely to 
be worsted in the encounter, apologized and took 
his leave. 

In accordance with the Persian proverb, “ Make 
yourself a rarity and you will be highly esteemed,” 
the visits of the Count de Lerne were considered 
very flattering attentions by those who were 
favored with them. His charms of person, his 
wit and talent, and even the slight freedom of his 
manner made him an exceedingly interesting 
personage ; so Madame de Maurescamp was really 
vexed that he should have been so poorly 
entertained at his first visit, and above all, that 
he should have found Monsieur de Monthelin 
installed there on terms of almost compromising 
familiarity. 

Though unable to see how it would be possible 
to speak to Monsieur de Lerne on such an ex- 
tremely delicate subject, she, nevertheless, waited 
with great impatience for the following Wednes- 
day, when she counted on seeing him again at his 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


93 


mother’s reception ; but, on her arrival at the 
house of the Countess, she was told that Jacques 
was confined to his room with a severe headache. 
Right or wrong, she saw in this circumstance an 
exhibition of disdain, or at least of ill humor. 
The esteem of this young man, whose habits were 
so far from exemplary, had suddenly become so 
essential to her that the thought of leaving him 
for any length of time under an unfavorable 
impression in regard to her seemed insupport- 
able. She was , naturally a person of no little 
decision of character, and, summoning all her 
courage, she took the old Countess a little aside, 
and said : 

“ Ah ! well, my dear Madame, I really begin to 
think that I despaired of your son’s conversion 
too soon. He called on me day before yesterday, 
and, as he is not much of a visitor, I think he 
must have had something serious to say to me — 
that he, perhaps, desired to speak to me in relation 
to his marriage. But, unfortunately, I was not 


94 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


alone. I regret this very much, particularly if it 
was that which brought him to my house.” 

“ Nothing is more probable, my dear child; 
but, thank Heaven, the misfortune is not irre- 
parable, by any means. When can he have the 
pleasure of seeing you, if he wishes to call 
again?” 

“ Let me see,” responded Madame de Maures- 
camp, knitting her brows. “Well, to-morrow, 
after dinner. I am not going out to-morrow 
evening.” 

“ I will tell him, my dearest ; be assured I am 
deeply grateful.” 

Madame de Maurescamp spent the following 
morning in bitterly repenting of the step she 
had taken, for her lonely and sensitive soul was 
almost appalled by the thought that she had 
made such a marked advance to Monsieur de 
Lerne. “ If he does not come, how mortified I 
shall be,” she said to herself, “ and, if he does 
come, will he not fancy he is coming to a 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


95 


rendezvous ? Will he not, perhaps, imagine that 
this question of marriage is only a pretext to 
conceal a sort of bold challenge ?” 

Evening came. After dinner, Baron de Mau- 
re, scamp played a few moments with his son 
Robert in the drawing-room, and then went out 
as usual to smoke a cigar on the Boulevard. 
Jeanne continued to play a series of waltzes and 
mazourkas on the piano, while her son, in a white 
dress and blue sash, danced with Toby and his 
English nurse. She paused abruptly, however, 
on seeing the door open. It was a servant. 

“ Is Madame at home ? ” he inquired. 

“ Yes. Who has called ? ” 

“ The Count de Lerne, Madame.” 

“ Show him in.” 

She took up her son and kissed him ; then she 
seated herself quietly in an arm-chair, holding the 
child in her arms as Madonnas hold their infants. 

Jacques de ‘Lerne, on entering, beheld this 
saintly tableau, which must convince him (at 


96 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


least, Jeanne, hoped so) that the circumstances 
were more serious and proper than he had, 
perhaps, been tempted to suppose. He, how- 
ever, did not seem to experience either surprise 
or disappointment, and began to caress little 
Robert as if he had come for that special pur- 
pose, and, after a few moments, Madame de 
Maurescamp decided to send the child to bed, 
as his services were no longer needed. 

Just as the boy was leaving the room, a terrific 
gust of wind made the shutters rattle violently. 

“ Listen ! ” exclaimed Jeanne. “ This is a real 
tempest, and it snows, besides, I believe.” 

“ Yes, it is snowing very hard,” replied Mon- 
sieur de Lerne. “A place by your fireside is 
very pleasant in such weather.” 

“ Did I not tell you that you were domestic in 
your tastes ! ” laughed Jeanne. 

“ Ah ! there it is again. But tell me, Madame, 
why are you so anxious for me to“marry ? Such 
an idea never entered your head of its own 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 97 

accord. If I understood you, the other evening 
it was my mother who first suggested it ? ” 

“Yes, certainly.” 

“ Ah ! that is very like her.” 

He became thoughtful; then, after a pause, 
he added: 

“ I regret I cannot oblige you and my mother 
in this matter, for, as I told you, I do not wish to 
marry.” 

“ Because there is not a single woman in the 
world worthy of you, I believe.” 

“ Pray, permit me to explain, Madame. You 
know in matters of religion, people who do not 
practise it are the most uncharitable and exacting 
towards others. There is no such thing as satis- 
fying them. ‘ If I were in your place/ they say 
to you, ‘ I would do this/ or ‘ I would do that ’ — 
in short, they would be perfection. I resemble 
them in this matter of marriage. I know of no 
one who regards it as I do, and that is why I 
renounce it.” 

6 


98 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


“ How do you regard it, pray ? ” asked Jeanne, 
in a slightly ironical tone. 

“ You would laugh at me if I told you. ,, 

“ I do not think so. Try me.” 

“ Ah ! well, Madame, marriage to me is love, 
par excellence. It is possible that love in mar- 
riage may be a dream, but it is the most beautiful 
of dreams, and if it is even half realized there 
can be nothing sweeter or more elevating in the 
world. Such love is the only love worthy of the 
name, because it is the only one to which relig- 
ious feeling imparts something enduring, eternal. 
Divorce, about which people are talking so much 
at present, is offensive to me on this account. 
Through it, marriage loses all its sacredness. 
This feeling is, perhaps, incomprehensible to 
commonplace or uncongenial souls, but imagine 
two beings who have chosen each other from all 
the rest of the world, who understand and please 
each other perfectly, and who esteem each other 
— in short, who truly love, and think how much 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


99 


the certainty of unlimited duration will increase 
the happiness of their perfect union. It is a 
charming route which these two dear comrades 
will follow, and which they see with rapture lose 
itself in the illimitable horizon where heaven 
and earth meet. But I weary you, Madame ? ” 

She shook her head. 

“ Ah ! well,” continued Monsieur de Lerne, 
“ I can conceive of no life richer or more blessed 
than that of these two travellers, these two 
lovers, who are, at the same time, friends in the 
best and truest sense of the word. Their life is 
absolutely doubled. All their feelings are more 
intense, all their joys are increased ; their griefs 
alone are lessened. If they are intelligent, as 
they must be, they will become more so ; if they 
are good, they will become better through mutual 
sympathy, through a constant interchange of 
ideas, through a fond emulation and a desire not 
to lose each others esteem. In the degenerate 
times in which we live, it seems to me that such 


100 THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 

an intimate union of two generous and refined 
souls would be invested with a still greater charm, 
since they could mutually aid and strengthen 
each other in keeping their hearts and tastes 
pure, and in remaining faithful to their ancestors 
in point of honor, and to the old masters in art 
and poetry — could admire together that which is 
eternally beautiful and ignore the rest — could 
take refuge on the heights as in an ark — could 
discuss together all that disquiet the heart and 
mind at this period of the age — could share their 
beliefs or their doubts — could sometimes talk 
together of God even, counsel each other, seek 
Him, or mourn together! You see, Madame, 
what utter folly is mine ! ” 

Jeanne’s attitude, while listening to Monsieur 
de Lerne, was charming. Leaning slightly for- 
ward, she regarded him with great, astonished 
eyes, as if she saw a delicious spring gush forth 
before her, and her lips opened as if to drink of 
it. When he paused, he saw her furtively brush 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


101 


away a tear that was stealing down her cheek. 
Deeply moved himself, a sudden and thoughtless 
sympathetic impulse made him attempt to take 
her hand, but she gently withdrew it with an air 
of grave dignity. 

“ Pardon me,” he said. “ I thought we were 
friends.” 

“Not yet,” she murmured. 

“ Have you not confidence in me ? Do I 
appear like a man who is paying court to you ? ” 

“Everyone has his peculiar way,” she replied, 
smiling faintly. 

“ Confess that mine would be peculiar ! ” 

He began to trifle a little nervously with some 
knick-knacks that adorned the table, and his eyes 
falling upon a photograph of little Robert, he 
took it up and examined it attentively. 

“ My son is very pretty, is he not ? ” asked the 
young mother. 

“ Charming ! Why did you take him in your 
arms just now to receive me ? ” 


102 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


“ I do not know. By chance, I suppose.” 

“ No, it was not by chance. You meant to say 
to me : If you come here as a friend, you are 
welcome ; if you come in any other capacity, 
this is my answer.” 

“ It is true. Was it not a good one ? ” 

“ There could not be a better one,” replied 
Jacques in a voice that trembled slightly. “ And 
if anything surprises me,” he continued with 
singular earnestness, “ it is that women are not 
oftener restrained from folly by the thought of 
their sons. Do they suppose their sons will not 
hear of their thoughtless or culpable conduct, 
sooner or later ? And how can you expect a man, 
who no longer respects his mother, to respect 
anybody or anything else ? When his respect for 
his mother fails him, everything else fails him ; 
when he loses faith in her, he loses faith in 
everything else. Ah ! if women could only see 
what is passing in the heart of an unfortunate 
son when he first learns to distrust his mother ! ” 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 103 

Monsieur de Lerne suddenly paused, his voice 
choked with a sob ; and, with the despairing 
gesture of a man who cannot overcome his 
emotion, he turned away his head and covered 
his face with his hands. 

Jeanne, like every one else, had heard of the 
youthful indiscretions of Madame de Lerne, and 
she understood him. 

There was a moment of painful silence ; then 
Madame de Maurescamp suddenly rose from her 
arm-chair, advanced a few steps and extended her 
hand to her companion. 

He, too, had risen, and their eyes met. He 
closely pressed the proffered hand, bowed and 
left the room. 

Madame de Maurescamp remained motionless 
for an instant after this abrupt departure, then 
took a few wavering steps and sank into a low 
arm-chair, where, with one hand supporting her 
head and the other wiping away at intervals the 
tears that glided down her cheeks, she fell into a 


104 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


deep reverie. Why did she weep ? In the agita- 
tion in which this scene had left her, she scarcely 
knew herself. 

The peal of the bell in the hall suddenly made 
her frown ; an instant after the door opened and 
a servant ushered* in Monsieur de Monthelin. 

“I learned from Baron de Maurescamp that 
you would be at home this evening,” he began, 
“so I ventured — ” 

“ You are very kind. Pray come to the fire 
and warm yourself.” 

A single glance had sufficed to convince Mon- 
sieur de Monthelin that Jeanne had been weep- 
ing. It was not the first time he had detected 
symptoms of this kind in a pretty, young wife 
who was neglected by her husband, and he 
had come, not without reason, to regard it as a 
favorable omen for his personal aspirations. He 
knew with certainty that the Baron de Maures- 
camp, for once deserting the corps de ballet , had 
just formed a liking for an American circus rider, 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. lOf 

Diana Gray, whose appearance at the Cirque 
cC Hiver had been one of the events of the season 
For several days past, she had been seen driving 
around the lake in the Bois a pair of superb 
black horses, a gift of the donor of which no one 
was ignorant, and Monsieur de Monthelin was 
strongly inclined to think that there was a 
close connection between this circumstance and 
Madame de Maurescamp’s evident depression of 
spirits. 

The rather grotesque sobriquet, which Jacques 
de Lerne had bestowed upon Monsieur de Mon- 
thelin, may have cast upon this personage, in the 
eyes of the reader, a tinge of ridicule scarcely 
justifiable under the circumstances, for he was 
really an exceedingly crafty and dangerous man. 
With women he had the singular prestige which 
so often attaches to a man of his habits, and they 
seemed to think it more honorable to suffer 
wrong at his hands than at those of any other 
person. Without being the possessor of what is 


106 THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE; 

generally termed shrewdness, he had, by dint of 
severe application and a real taste for his rôle, 
acquired remarkable skill in ferreting out oppor- 
tunities and profiting by them. He knew better 
than almost any one that there are certain 
hours of mental enervation and depression in 
a woman’s existence, hours when she is, so to 
speak, defenceless, and when a bold and unscru- 
pulous man may take her at a terrible disad- 
vantage. 

Monsieur de Monthelin, in his cunning schem- 
ing against Madame de Maurescamp, had been 
awaiting this fatal hour for a long time with 
tiger-like assiduity and patience. He believed 
that it had now arrived. After a few moments 
spent in a commonplace conversation, in which 
Madame de Maurescamp took only an indifferent 
and languishing part, he drew his chair closer to 
the sofa upon which she was seated. 

“ You are scarcely listening to me,” he re- 
marked. “ What is the matter with you ? ” 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 107 


“ Nothing.” 

“ You have been weeping.” 

“ Possibly.” 

“Have I not proved myself sufficiently a friend 
to be made the confidant of your griefs ? ” 

“ I have none.” 

He gently took her hands, and, coming still 
closer, he looked her fixedly in the eyes, and 
murmured : 

“ My poor child, if you but knew how I love 
you.” 

Suddenly she felt his arm stealing around her, 
and instantly waking as from a dream, she 
sprang up and violently repulsed him. 

“Ah! my poor gentleman,” she exclaimed, “if 
you but knew what a mistake you are making.” 

It was impossible to misunderstand either the 
tone of her voice or the expression of her face. 
The feeling she experienced was evidently the 
coldest and most pitiless disdain. Monsieur de 
Monthelin was obliged to acknowledge that for 
once his boasted penetration had deceived him. 


108 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


There only remained for him to beat an honor- 
able retreat. 

“ I believe the Count de Lerne has just left 
here,” he said, haughtily. “He has taken his 
revenge. It is only fair ! ” • 

He took up his hat, bowed profoundly and 
passed out. 

Jeanne, left alone, reaped for the first time the 
great and horrible danger she had almost uncon- 
sciously incurred. She felt that a few days, or, 
perhaps, even a few hours before, through discour- 
agement or recklessness, she might have become, 
without love, without esteem and without excuse, 
the victim of a heartless man of the world. She 
realized how near she had been to this terrible 
abyss, and how far she was from it now. She 
understood, too, that the tears she had just shed 
were tears of happiness. 

Overcome by a kind of joyous excitement, she 
suddenly pushed her heavy hair back from her 
forehead, murmuring brokenly : “ I am saved ! 

I am saved ! ” 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


109 


CHAPTER Vn. 

CONGENIAL COMPANIONSHIP. 

I T is scarcely necessary to inform our readers, 
particularly our lady readers, that from the 
date of that eventful evening, and without any 
other explanation, a firmer and more intimate 
friendship united Jeanne and Jacques de Lerne. 

Jeanne entered upon a new and delightful 
phase of her life. She seemed to have renewed 
her youth, with all the illusions, faith and enthu- 
siasm of feeling that had characterized it; she 
had found her wings again. Nothing could have 
borne a stronger resemblance to her most delight- 
ful dreams than the sentiment which now bound 
her to Monsieur de Lerne. Their two souls were 
in as perfect accord on all important and delicate 
points as if one were completely under the mag- 
netic influence of the other. It soon became 


110 THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 

evident to Jeanne that Jacques, as well as her- 
self, really lived only in the hours they spent so 
happily together. She comprehended this by the 
sudden radiance that overspread his face on per- 
ceiving her, by the tenderness in his voice, and 
the gentle and respectful pressure of his hand. 
She saw that he sought her society as much as he 
possibly could without compromising her, and 
that he was equally tortured by his eagerness 
and his scruples. She also noticed that his 
tastes had changed, and that, to gratify her, 
and above all, to meet her, he had become a fre- 
quenter of social gatherings. She was pleased 
and grateful for all this, and still more so for 
the reserve of manner and language which he 
always displayed in her presence. No word of 
idle gallantry, but a tone of profound respect 
and a most flattering attention characterized 
his conversation when it was addressed to her, 
a charming way of making her understand, 
without putting it in so many words, that she 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. Ill 

was so superior to everybody and everything that 
it was impossible to converse with her on the 
same trivial, commonplace topics one pursued 
with other people. 

She heard one day that he had broken off his 
intimacy with Lucy Mary. This news pleased 
while it troubled her. She asked herself if this 
sacrifice, which had probably been made for her 
sake, did not place her in a false position in 
regard to Jacques. She blamed herself, too, for 
thus accepting his entire life when she could not 
give him all her own. To appease her trouble- 
some conscience, she, by a heroic effort, resolved 
to employ all her powers of persuasion in urging 
his marriage. She reminded him, therefore, that 
she had accepted the task of finding him a wife, 
and that her success in the undertaking was a 
question of honor with her. 

“ Besides,” she added, “you treated me to a 
very edifying discourse on matrimony one even- 
ing, and it would really be a pity if such a fine 


112 THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 

programme were not carried out, at least once 
in a lifetime.” 

“ Bat do you not see that I am trying to 
realize it with you ? ” he asked. 

She blushed deeply, and looked at him with a 
sort of frightened distrust she had never before 
manifested. 

“ Pray, do not misunderstand me,” he con- 
tinued. “I have placed your son between us. 
It would be impossible for me to be other or 
more than a friend to you without shamefully 
dishonoring myself in your eyes as well as mine 
— I should prove myself the vilest of hypocrites. 
You, yourself, must see that it is impossible.” 

“ Thank Heaven!” she replied; “but another 
thing that I fear is also impossible is for friend- 
ship to fill a man’s heart and life. I feel that it 
is cruelly selfish in me to allow you to sacrifice 
your whole heart and future for so slight a 
return.” 

“Waste no compassion on me, Madame,” he 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 113 

replied, gayly. “ I assure you I deserve none. 
Mine is a strange nature, and, had I lived in a 
different age, I should undoubtedly have been 
one of those who immure themselves in the cells 
of a cloister after a wild and reckless youth. 
Such men certainly did not have the consolation 
of a friendship like yours. Allow me to say, in 
perfect sincerity, that you are my refuge and my 
salvation. The life of a fashionable young man 
of the present day is made up of a continual 
round of dissipation, of which I have been able 
to accept my share, but of which I am thoroughly 
weary. I was gorged to repletion. I felt as if I 
was rolling in the mire. In short, I was haunted 
by an elevated and even austere ideal life, and I 
find it in the feeling I entertain for you ; for this 
sentiment, which is love, I fear, is also a religion. 
So have no uneasiness, and, above all, be happy. 
Care for me a little, and let us say no more about 
it. I am going to read you a page of your favor- 
ite Tennyson, one of the purest of poets. His 

7 


114 THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 

is a style perfectly adapted to the present 
circumstances.’’ 

Another evening, some months later, it was 
she who reassured him. She was to leave for 
Dieppe the following morning, to spend several 
weeks with her mother and her son, and Monsieur 
de Lerne had called to say good-bye. Though 
their separation was to be short, she could not 
help feeling some slight emotion and secret dread. 
Fearing, apparently, that she might evince more 
tenderness than was desirable, her reserve verged 
upon actual coldness. Surprised at her rather 
mocking and constrained manner, Monsieur de 
Lerne became silent and ill at ease, and soon 
rose to take his leave. As they shook hands, she 
detected an expression of anxiety and distrust in 
his eyes. 

“ I will wager that I can read your thoughts,” 
she said, smiling. 

“ Let me see.” 

“ You were wondering if I, in turn, was not 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 115 

going to say to you what a certain fair lady 
once said to her adorer, who granted her tearful 
entreaties that no shadow of evil should sully the 
purity of their relations, and to whom she, the 
next moment, bade a final farewell, with the 
words : ‘ Adieu, simpleton.’ ” 

“ It is true, and, perhaps, you would have been- 
quite right, for we have both displayed a lack of 
wisdom, I fear.” 

“ Oh ! do not say that ; you do not really mean 
it. On the contrary, I thank you so much ; I am 
so grateful to you. You have been of so much 
service to me, my friend. I shall esteem you, 
and I shall bless you with all my heart. And 
now, farewell. Write to me.” 

It was thus that they mutually encouraged each 
other in seasons of weakness and despondency. 

Determined to give the purest and most ele- 
vated character to their relations, Jeanne had 
requested Jacques to mark out a course of study 
and reading for her, and he spent his time during 


116 * THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 

her absence in collecting a small but choice 
library, in which the writers of the Seventeenth 
Century occupied the place of honor between 
the best critical essayists of the present day and 
several of the greatest historians. This formed 
the subject of their correspondence during 
Jeanne’s sojourn at Dieppe. After her return, 
she devoted herself to her reading with great 
ardor, and, henceforth, there was another bond 
between her and Jacques, the bond that unites 
teacher -and scholar, for Monsieur de Lerne, who 
was unusually well educated and well read, proved 
an admirable guide and commentator ; and from 
that time forth their conversations, harmony 
of taste, and their discussions on literary and 
historical subjects, imparted an increased zest to 
their pleasant companionship. 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 117 


CHAPTER VIII. 


A LONG SOUGHT OPPORTUNITY. 
HESE consolatory friendships which are 



JL the solace of so many unhappily wedded 
women certainly require, for their prolonged 
continuance, eminent superiority of character 
and, perhaps, also, such exceptional circum- 
tances as those which had brought Madame 
de Maurescamp and Jacques de Lerne together. 
Still, these heroic attachments are not without 
example in the world, though the world has 
but little faith in them. People generally have 
but a meagre appreciation of merits which are 
above the average, their own measure. Besides, 
these innocent loves are more open than others ; 
disdaining hypocrisy, those who indulge in 
them are consequently even more likely to be 
slandered and misjudged. Consequently, it was 


118 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


not at all surprising that the public judged the 
delicate relations that existed between Jeanne 
and Jacques with its accustomed coarseness and 
skepticism ; but if there was in society at large 
a man utterly incapable of understanding dis- 
tinctions of this kind, that man was the Baron 
de Maurescamp. Despite the fact that he was 
naturally of a jealous disposition, though his 
jealousy arose rather from vanity than from 
a love for his wife, he had never thought of 
distrusting his friend Monthelin, who had so 
greatly imperilled his honor, but, with the 
usual discernment of his class, he did not fail to 
be horrified at the blameless intimacy between 
his wife and the Count de Lerne. He instinct- 
ively detested Jacques, who was his superior in 
every respect ; he had often had him for a rival, 
and for a favored rival, in certain fashionable 
circles where talent and elevation of sentiment 
still maintain their prestige ; and it seemed 
hard to Baron de Maurescamp to find that this 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


119 


tiresome fellow had carried the rivalry into his 
own home ; and it must be admitted that, had he 
not been the most negligent and culpable of hus-* 
bands, his sensitiveness in this respect would 
certainly have been excusable. On more than 
one occasion, Jeanne had noticed the ill humor 
her husband manifested on witnessing Monsieur 
de Lerne’s attentions, but had given herself little 
uneasiness about it. Several times during her 
stay at Dieppe, however, she had shown him the 
letters she received from Jacques, in order to 
reassure him by demonstrating the purely friendly 
character of their relations. To convince him 
more effectually, she had even taken pains to 
devise pretexts to detain him in the drawing- 
room in order to divest Jacques’ visits of any 
appearance of secrecy, but these precautions had 
utterly failed to produce the desired effect. 
Baron de Maurescamp naturally felt very uncom- 
fortable and out of place in their presence; he 
was irritated and annoyed on account of the 


120 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


inferior rôle he found himself forced to play on 
such occasions, and, after shrugging his shoulders 
and uttering some coarse or disparaging remark, 
he generally took himself oft. At such times, the 
truth presented itself so forcibly that he was 
almost compelled to believe that their relations 
were purely intellectual, but this did not prevent 
him from nourishing a sullen and intense hatred 
against Monsieur de Lerne that was only waiting 
for an opportunity to burst forth. 

Unfortunately this opportunity soon presented 
itself. As we have said, Baron de Maurescamp 
for more than a year had been infatuated with 
Diana Gray, a young American equestrienne , 
who was at that time the rage in Paris. This 
creature, who was the daughter of a second-rate 
acrobat, and who had been cradled in the mire, 
had, nevertheless, the fresh, pure beauty of a lily. 
Pale, with delicate and refined features, a classi- 
cal perfection of form, and an unbounded natural 
depravity with which a sort of Anglo-Saxon 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


121 


ferocity was mingled, she had by reason of these 
attributes subjugated Baron de Maurescamp com- 
pletely, and inspired him with one of those 
intense and servile passions which are generally 
confined to old men, but which blasé young men 
sometimes experience, probably on account of 
premature imbecility. She had captivated him 
at first by her personal charms and her popu- 
larity ; she completed her conquest by the absurd 
caprices with which she tormented him. There 
are some men, who like Sganarelle’s wife, enjoy 
being beaten. Baron de Maurescamp was one 
of the number apparently, and he was certainly 
gratified to the utmost by the pretty American. 
Diana Gray, had she so chosen, could have forced 
him through the paper-covered rings through 
which she herself jumped every evening at the 
circus performance, but she preferred to make 
him give her a handsome residence on the Ave- 
nue du Bois de Boulogne, and the means to 
maintain such* an establishment comfortably. 


122 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


Early in April, this singular person conceived 
the idea of inviting some friends to breakfast. 
She herself made out the list of guests, and, to 
the great annoyance of Baron de Maurescamp, 
she inserted the name of Count de Lerne, with 
whom she was but slightly acquainted, but who 
had been much talked of in her presence, for he 
had left behind him in Parisian Bohemia the 
reputation of an exceedingly agreeable compan- 
ion and extremely gallant man. Jacques had 
entirely broken off all associations with the 
society of which Diana Gray was the leading 
star, but he accepted this invitation. 

Diana Gray placed Monsieur de Lerne on her 
right, and, from the very beginning of the repast, 
manifested a marked predilection for his society. 
Jacques spoke English perfectly, and she seemed 
to take infinite pleasure in conversing with him 
in that language, with which Baron de Maures- 
camp had not the advantage of an acquaintance. 
Jacques endeavored to evade the rather oppres- 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


123 


sive attentions of his neighbor as much as possi- 
ble, and tried to speak French. This she would 
not do, but resolutely continued the conversation 
in English, drinking to his health in alternate 
glasses of pale ale and port. At the same time, 
she cast exasperating and almost contemptuous 
glances at Baron de Maurescamp, who was seated 
at the centre of the table opposite her, and who 
was evidently deeply incensed. 

The entertainment was somewhat of a failure, 
the mistress of the house being the only person 
who seemed to thoroughly enjoy it. As soon as 
the repast was ended, Jacques de Lerne, eager to 
make his escape from such an unpleasant situa- 
tion, pleaded a business engagement and with- 
drew. 

After his departure, Diana Gray lighted a 
cigarette, and, throwing herself carelessly upon 
a divan, sipped her port there. She saw that 
Baron de Maurescamp was sulky, and to set mat- 
ters right she said to him, in a loud voice and 
with a slight accent: 


124 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


“My boy, the Count is very attractive. Do 
you know I have taken quite a fancy to him ? 
I think I will cultivate a flirtation and become 
some one’s rival.” 

“ You are crazy, Diana,” said Baron de Maures- 
camp, turning very red, “ and you forget of 
whom you are speaking.” 

And little rings of smoke continued to ascend 
tranquilly from her rosy lips to the ceiling. 

“She really is affected,” one of the guests 
remarked to Baron de Maurescamp. “It is a 
pity; otherwise she would be perfect.” 

An hour later, after every one had gone, Diana 
Gray secretly informed Baron de Maurescamp 
that she was sorry for what she had said, and 
consequently it was of no importance whatever, 
after which she asked his forgiveness and ob- 
tained it. 

Baron de Maurescamp had not only long since 
ceased to love his wife, but had long since 
begun to hate her, for in these ill-assorted mar- 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 125 

riages uncongeniality rarely ends in indiffer- 
ence, but tlie cynical and insulting words ut- 
tered by Diana Gra} r were well calculated to 
exasperate him. Though not very lavishly en- 
dowed with imaginative powers, he, nevertheless, 
had enough to picture the wife, from whom he 
had encountered naught but rather contempt- 
uous coldness, experiencing the liveliest trans- 
ports of passion for another, and this, which 
would certainly be far from agreeable to any one, 
was intensely exasperating to a man as vain, 
haughty and arrogant as Baron de Maurescamp. 
He forgot to remind himself that it might be 
rather unjust to make his wife’s peace, honor, 
and, perhaps, her very life depend upon his 
whims ; but the anger, jealousy and hatred which 
had long been accumulating in his heart against 
his w r ife and Jacques de Lerne burst forth in 
ungovernable fury, and he resolved to put an 
end to their intimacy by wreaking vengeance on 
both of them. An opportunity for a duel with 


126 THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 

Jacques seemed to him singularly fortunate, since 
the incidents that had occurred at the breakfast 
furnished him not only with a plausible excuse, 
but with one which had the two-fold advantage 
of leaving Madame de Maurescamp’s name en- 
tirely out of the quarrel, and giving him the 
choice of weapons. He was remarkably skilful 
in the use of the sword, and, though naturally 
brave, he was not disposed to neglect such an 
advantage. 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 127 


CHAPTER IX. ' 

THE CHALLENGE. 

B ARON DE MAURESCAMP walked down 
the Champs-Elysées, almost blind with 
rage and savagely gnawing the end of his cigar. 
Twenty minutes later he entered the club-house, 
where he found several of his companions of the 
morning, among them Messieurs de Monthelin 
and d’Hermany, with whom he at once held a 
private conference. He informed them, in the 
strictest confidence, that he considered himself 
insulted by the Count de Lerne’s unbecoming 
conduct towards Diana Gray, and his persistent 
use of the English language during the entire 
meal, when he was perfectly well aware that he, 
de Maurescamp, was not acquainted with that 
tongue — in short, by de Lerne’s behavior in 
general, which had been so impertinent as to 


128 THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 

border upon insult. These gentlemen raised no 
objection on account of the trivial nature of these 
grievances, understanding that they concealed 
others of a more serious nature which it was 
advisable to keep in the background. Baron de 
Maurescamp added that he made it a rule to 
settle such affairs with the least possible delay, so 
there would not be time for the difficulty to be 
noised abroad, and so as to prevent the always- 
to-be-deplored intervention of women. Conse- 
quently, he entreated these gentlemen to do him 
the favor to wait upon Monsieur de Lerne imme- 
diately, and perform the mission entrusted to 
them. 

Monsieur de Monthelin replied that his former 
difficulty and duel with Monsieur de Lerne 
obliged him to decline to act in this matter. 
Baron de Maurescamp admitted this, and he 
then called into requisition the services of 
another friend, Monsieur de la Jardye, who was 
also a member of the club, and who was sum- 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


129 


moned from an adjoining room. Monsieur de la 
Jardye delighted in these opportunities to display 
his importance. He endeavored, for form’s sake, 
to say a few words in favor of a reconciliation ; 
but he also had been present at Diana Gray’s 
breakfast, and he concluded by saying that, since 
his candid opinion was asked, he must admit that 
certain things had occurred at the breakfast 
which his friend, Baron de Maure scainp, must 
certainly find rather difficult of digestion, and, for 
this reason, he was quite willing to serve him in 
the capacity of a second. 

Monsieur de Lerne was blissfully ignorant of 
the treat that was in store for him. He quietly 
took his daily walk in the Bois and returned home 
about six o’clock. There, considerably to his 
surprise and annoyance, he found the cards of 
Messieurs de la Jardye and d’Hermany, enclosed 
in a sealed envelope, with this little note in 
pencil: 

“ Called in relation to a personal matter in 

8 


130 THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 

behalf of Baron de Maurescamp. Will have the 
honor of returning about half past six.” 

Jacques did not need much time to fathom the 
mystery. Though he was ignorant of the base 
insinuations made by Diana Gray after his de- 
parture, Baron de Maurescamp’ s irritation at the 
breakfast had not escaped his notice, and, with 
the quick discernment peculiar to persons of a 
lively imagination, he instantly comprehended 
the real situation. Baron de Maurescamp had 
eagerly seized the first available pretext to satisfy 
his wrath as a jealous husband, without compro- 
mising the good name of his wife. Monsieur de 
Lerne had nothing to say against this. He at 
once wrote to two of his friends, Jules de Ram- 
bert and John Evelyn — the last an Englishman 
— dispatched the letters with all possible speed, 
and had the satisfaction of seeing both gentlemen 
appear a few moments after the arrival of Mes- 
sieurs de la Jardye and d’Hermany, whereupon he 
left the four together, and retired to an adjoining 
room to await their decision. 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


131 


The affair was one of those that do not neces- 
sitate a prolonged discussion, since all the parties 
interested knew that the ostensible cause of the 
quarrel concealed the real one, which, by mutual 
consent, was neither discussed nor even men- 
tioned. To the statement made by Monsieur 
de la Jardye and his friend Monsieur d’Hermany, 
in behalf of Baron de Maurescamp, Messieurs de 
Rambert and Evelyn replied, in the name of their 
friend, that the alleged grievances were purely 
imaginary; but, at the same time, as Baron de 
Maurescamp considered himself insulted, Mon- 
sieur de Lerne could only bow to his decision. 
Moreover, Monsieur de Lerne, like Baron de 
Maurescamp, was of the opinion that the affair 
should be settled as soon as possible, and before 
it could come to the knowledge of the public. In 
regard to the choice of weapons, Monsieur de 
Lerne’s seconds were not quite as accommo- 
dating, they having received from J acques, under 
a pledge of secrecy, a very important disclosure. 


132 THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


“ On principle/’ he had remarked to them, “ I 
accept the sword, I accept anything ; but you 
know I was wounded in the right arm two years 
ago, in my duel with Monthelin. Since that time, 
I have been troubled by a slight weakness in that 
arm. It is a mere trifle and depends greatly upon 
the weather, but it may be a disadvantage to me 
in such an encounter. To demand pistols on the 
plea of such an infirmity, is impossible, for it is so 
slight as not to be apparent. Every day people 
see me touch the piano with a firm hand, and 
every one would believe that I had invented this 
pretext to escape the sword of Baron de Maures- 
camp, as he handles that weapon very adroitly. 
So, for the sake of your honor and mine, not a 
word about my arm ! But, if you can secure the 
pistol by any honorable means, I shall be very 
glad.” 

It was, therefore, necessary to convince Baron 
de Maurescamp’s seconds that, under the cir- 
cumstances, there was some real doubt as to which 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


133 


of the two adversaries was the offender and 
which the aggrieved party. Was not this chal- 
lenge, wdiich Baron de Maurescamp had sent 
to Monsieur de Lerne on account of incidents so 
undeniably trivial, of such an absurd character 
as to constitute the real aggression ? Conse- 
quently, it appeared to them only just and 
proper that the choice of weapons should belong 
to the party thus palpably wronged, or, at least, 
be left to chance. Messieurs de la Jardye and 
d’Hermany replied with cold politeness that such 
a transposition of rôles in this unfortunate affair 
could not be seriously entertained for a moment, 
and that a persistent refusal to recognize the 
rights of their friend as the aggrieved party was 
equivalent on Count de Lerne’s part to a refusal 
to grant him reparation, a thing that certainly 
could not enter into his plans. Messieurs de Kam- 
bert and Evelyn thought it impossible to insist 
further. Afterwards, there were many conflicting 
opinions as to whether or not they were right. 


134 THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 

Some declared that Monsieur de Lerne’s seconds 
being aware of his infirmity, however slight it 
might have been, should not have allowed him to 
engage in this combat under conditions that were 
manifestly unequal ; others, men whose opinions 
on such subjects were regarded as conclusive, 
maintained that, in such a case, it was the para- 
mount duty of the seconds to obey the instruc- 
tions of the party they represented, and who had 
intrusted them first with the care of his honor, 
and secondly with the care of his life. 

It was, therefore, decided that the combat 
should be with the sword, and that the meeting 
should take place at three o’clock on the after- 
noon of the following day, at Soignies, on the 
Belgian frontier. 

Jacques listened to the result of this conference 
without any show of disappointment, thanked his 
friends for their well-meant efforts in his behalf, 
gayly assured them that he should come out all 
right, and requested them to meet him at the 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


135 


Northern Railway Station at seven o’clock the 
next morning. 

But, when he was once more alone, his coun- 
tenance assumed an expression of deep serious- 
ness, which the circumstances certainly justified. 
From a natural, but, perhaps, too keen sense of 
honor, he had been unwilling to confess the whole 
truth in regard to his wounded arm. The fact 
was that any prolonged exercise, especially in 
fencing, brought on a weakness and numbness in 
this unfortunate member, which, in a combat 
with a skilful and powerful swordsman like 
Baron de Maurescamp, must place his adversary 
in a position of decided inferiority. Monsieur de 
Lerne faced this prospect with a firm heart, but, 
though he did not abandon hope or look upon 
himself as a dead man, he made no attempt to 
close his eyes to the fact that he was about to 
incur a great risk. 

He made his preparations accordingly. For- 
tunately, his mother was dining out that evening; 


136 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


he loved her though he had suffered greatly 
through her, and he congratulated himself that 
chance had spared him the cruel constraint her 
presence would have imposed upon him. But 
there remained for him to undergo that same 
evening an equally, if not more painful test. , 

Madame d’Hermany was to give a grand 
ball, and it had long since been agreed that 
Madame de Maurescamp and Jacques should 
meet there. 

They had even renewed the engagement in the 
Bois that afternoon, and, for more reasons than 
one, Monsieur de Lerne decided that he must not 
fail to attend this ball. He not only feared that 
his failure to do so would disappoint Jeanne and 
arouse her anxiety, but, if any vague rumors in 
relation to the duel of the morrow were already 
in circulation, his presence would suffice to silence 
them. But, more than all this, it seemed to him 
that Jeanne’s reputation demanded this coura- 
geous effort, for, since Baron de Maurescamp 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 137 

had made Diana, and not his wife, the pretext of 
their quarrel, Monsieur de Lerne thought the 
best way to aid him in his plans, and to deceive 
the public, was to show himself in society that 
same evening with Madame de Maurescamp, on 
the same terms as usual. Though this w’ould cost 
him dear, he regarded it as a duty imperatively 
demanded by delicacy. 


138 THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


CHAPTER X. 

MADAME d’hERMANY’s BALL. 

H E wrote two letters, one to his mother, the 
other to Jeanne, and at eleven o’clock he 
entered the Hôtel d’Hermany, on the Avenue 
Gabriel, with a smiling face and dressed with 
scrupulous care. The master of the house, one 
of his adversary’s seconds, opened his rather dull 
eyes in astonishment on beholding this unex- 
pected guest ; but he soon recovered himself and 
greeted him with extreme cordiality, thinking, as 
he said later, that the thing was plucky and 
courageous, and proved de Lerne to be the 
possessor of a strong stomach. 

The fair-haired Madame d’Hermany, more 
beautiful and unscrupulous than ever, seeing 
that Monsieur de Lerne seemed to be searching 
for some one in the crowd, looked him full in the 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


139 


eyes, and said, concisely : “ Second door to the 

left — in the conservatory under the third palm 
on the right. Now, say that I am not kind ! ” 
He bowed gravely and followed her instructions. 

The conservatory was connected with the 
salons by two arches, one of which had been 
reserved for the orchestra. The conservatory 
itself was really an immense salon surmounted 
by a dome, and containing a magnificent collec- 
tion of enormous blue vases on gilded pedestals, 
superb bronze urns and statuary, half concealed 
in the rich verdure, while low divans, surrounded 
by ottomans and folding-chairs, stood beneath the 
large fan-shaped leaves of the palms, the droop- 
ing vines full of white, wax-like blossoms and 
the glossy foliage and heavy white corollas of the 
magnolias. The air was saturated with the warm, 
damp perfume of a tropical forest, and from the 
groups of talkers, sitting here and there, rose a 
murmur of voices which sounded like the hum- 
ming of a hive of bees, and which, occasionally, 


140 THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 

broke forth into loud bursts of merriment that 
effectually drowned the deeper notes of the 
orchestra. 

In one of these groups, under the third palm 
on the right, sat Jeanne de Maurescamp, listening 
rather abstractedly to three or four admirers of 
different ages. On perceiving Jacques, her face 
suddenly brightened, and that radiant smile w r hich 
women reserve for their favorites illumined her 
features. This smile sufficed to reassure Jacques, 
and convince him that any rumor in relation to 
the event of the morrow had not yet reached 
Jeanne's ears. 

On the arrival of Count de Lerne, the stars 
of lesser magnitude, that had been revolving 
around the lady, gradually passed into a state of 
eclipse with a feeling of mingled vexation and 
deference, for, though the relations of Madame 
de Maurescamp and Jacques were the subject of 
much talk, people instinctively felt that they 
merited respect. But, before he found himself 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


141 


alone with Jeanne, Monsieur de Lerne had abun- 
dant time for some rather bitter reflections. 
Standing before her now, he was so deeply 
struck with her beauty that it seemed to him 
he saw and admired her for the first time. She 
wore, with the chasteness of Diana, the evening 
costume of the time, the diminutive corsage of 
which revealed her white, perfect shoulders and 
exquisitely moulded arms in all their matchless 
beauty. Her dark hair, which grew rather low 
on her forehead like that of the goddesses, was 
simply twisted into a heavy knot at the back of 
her head, which she held slightly thrown back, in 
a proud, almost triumphant attitude. She felt 
that she was looking her best, that she was beau- 
tiful — and her pearly teeth gleamed between the 
crimson of her rather full lips as she smiled 
exultantly at the knowledge. In the presence of 
this charming creature, so richly endowed with 
graces of mind and person, Jacques could not 
repress a sudden and almost savage paroxysm of 


142 THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. • 

admiration, regret and anger. He had respected 
her. He had done violence to his own feelings. 
He had displayed this mad heroism, and this was 
his reward! 

With the quick and marvellous intuition of a 
woman, Madame de Maurescamp seemed to read 
something of this in the young man’s ardent and 
troubled eyes. A faint blush suffused her olive 
cheeks, and, fluttering her fan with a slightly 
embarrassed air, and lifting her face almost 
timidly to his, she said : 

“ You have not your good eyes this evening. 
What has changed you?” 

“You are so beautiful that you overwhelm 
me ! ” Jacques replied, in a low voice. 

“ Your astonishment will soon pass off,” she 
rejoined, laughing. “ But no remarks of that 
kind, if you please, my friend. Have you become 
a materialist again ? ” 

“ Yes, in a measure ; at least, during the last 
quarter of an hour.” 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 143 

“ Do you know that you pain me ? ” 

“ Ah ! I fear I am not one of the pure-minded/’ 
he said, seating himself. 

“ But I am/’ she replied, with the frank, joy- 
ous laugh of a child, “ and I am also one of the 
few who find life an enchantment ; and it is all 
due to you.” 

Then, suddenly, and in a tone of deep feeling, 
she exclaimed : 

“ Ah ! if I were only sure that you were 
happy, my friend, as happy as I am ! That is 
what I was saying to myself just before you 
came in.” 

“ Are you, indeed, so happy?” he asked, in a 
voice that faltered slightly. 

“ Happy, happy, happy ! ” she responded, with 
charming enthusiasm ; “ and through you ! You 
may give yourself all the credit of it. There 
are moments when I am even frightened by 
my happiness, it is so intense. Think a mo- 
ment,” she continued, lowering her voice a little: 


144 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


“ I love, I am beloved, and all this without agi- 
tation, in peace, and without present remorse, 
or fear concerning the future, for, thanks be to 
God, and to you, my friend, I shall see without 
terror that first wrinkle which is the spectre and 
the chastisement of ordinary loves. I shall grow 
old contentedly, almost joyfully, because, as I 
grow old, I shall be more free, less fettered by 
les convenances. For instance, I have a delight- 
ful dream of taking a journey with you some 
day, and to do that, you know, I must be old ! 
But, in the meantime, if you only knew the 
transformation that has taken place in the world, 
and in my own life ! Pray, take some pride in 
the miracle you have accomplished. It seems to 
me that all my senses, and, indeed, my entire 
being, have been modified, elevated and purified ; 
that you have taught me — how shall I express 
it ? — the divine sense of things ; that you have 
taught me to see the noble side of everything 
that exists, everything of which my sense of 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


145 


vision and my mind are cognizant. Hence, I have 
joys unknown to all the rest of the world, the 
joys of heaven itself, the happiness of the angels! 
Everything upon which my eyes rest is illumined 
with new splendor and clothed in a beauty I 
never knew before. It is an absurd fancy, of 
course, but, sometimes, while driving in the Bois, 
I look at the trees which never before excited my 
admiration, and I say to myself : ‘ Ah ! how 

beautiful and grand a tree is ! how graceful, 
how full of life and vigor ! ’ There is not an 
object in nature, not a blade of grass that does 
not fill me with wonder and ecstasy ! I am sure 
— do you not agree with me ? — that everything 
in the world has two faces : one, to a certain 
extent, material and commonplace, which is 
visible to every one ; the other, which is mysteri- 
ous and spiritual, and which is the secret and the 
mark of God. It is this that my eyes now behold, 
and for this happiness I am indebted to you. 
This is your work, my friend ! ” 

9 


146 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


Even while he listened with secret anguish, 
Jacques’ countenance gradually assumed a gentle 
and serious expression. 

“ Yes,” he said, slowly, in a slightly changed 
voice, fixing a look of infinite tenderness upon 
her, “ there must be a God, a better life and 
immortal souls, since there are beings like 
you.” 

Then, suddenly, he exclaimed : “ Good heavens ! 
are you ill ? ” 

He feared so, for she had suddenly become as 
white as marble, and her eyes seemed to be riv- 
eted upon some frightful apparition. Monsieur 
de Lerne hastily turned and saw Baron de Mau- 
rescamp standing motionless in the arched door- 
way leading into the conservatory. He was 
watching them intently, and his eyes and 
inflamed features revealed such frantic rage that 
Monsieur de Lerne instantly rose, fearing some 
immediate act of violence. 

Not until then did Baron de Maurescamp 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 147 

advance slowly towards them, evidently struggling 
against an almost irresistible paroxysm of pas- 
sion, but, as he approached under the wondering 
glances that were directed upon him from every 
side, and in the death-like silence that suddenly 
filled the room, he succeeded in partially con- 
trolling himself, and, on reaching his wife, he 
merely said, in a rather harsh and sullen voice : 

“ Your son is ill ; come.” 

Jeanne uttered a slight cry, then began to ply 
him with hurried questions, but, quickly compre- 
hending from his manner and his confused replies 
that the child’s illness was only a pretext, she 
followed him without another word. 

Baron de Maurescamp, after dropping in for 
a few moments at the opera, had gone to his 
club. There, by the merest chance, he happened 
to hear of Count de Lerne’s presence at the 
d’Hermany ball. He knew that his wife was 
going there, and, being destitute alike of delicacy 
of mind and of heart, he had not even suspected 


148 THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 

the honorable motives that had prompted Mon- 
sieur de Lerne’s conduct. He saw in it only an 
act of insolent bravado in which his wife was an 
accomplice, and he rushed to the Hôtel d’Hermany 
without any definite plan, but impelled to do so 
by a paroxysm of hatred and rage which would 
not have recoiled at anything, not even public 
scandal. 


TIJE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 149 


CHAPTER XI. 


A VAIN APPEAL 



HILE the news of Madame de Maures- 


camp’s enforced departure with her 


husband was going the rounds of room after 
room in whispers mingled with stifled laughter, 
Baron de Maurescamp flung himself heavily down 
upon the seat of the coupé beside his wife. 
As soon as he was freed from the presence of wit- 
nesses, he ceased to speak of his son; and his 
silence and his almost ferocious manner prevented 
the slightest attempt at a remark from his unfor- 
tunate wife. She experienced an unspeakable 
distress of mind : it was the bewildered astonish- 
ment of a young creature suddenly struck down 
in the fulness of life, happiness and innocence ; 
the sorrowful indignation of a virtuous woman 
publicly insulted; the vague fear of some un- 


150 THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 

known and terrible catastrophe. In this name- 
less trouble, she remained mute, waiting for him 
to speak, but she waited in vain, and the journey 
from the Avenue Gabriel to the Avenue d’Alma 
was made without the interchange of a single 
word. 

But Jeanne’s naturally courageous soul soon 
began to recover from the bewilderment into 
which her first surprise had thrown her. She 
traversed the large and resounding hall of her 
home with a firm step under the eyes of three or 
four motionless valets, and ascended the stairs in 
silence, but when, on reaching the floor above, 
upon which her apartments were situated, she 
saw that her husband, whose rooms were above 
hers, was intending to pass up and leave her, she 
said, quietly : 

“ Will you come in ? I wish to speak with 
you.” 

He hesitated a moment, for, like the majority 
of his sex, he was not fond of explanations, but 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 151 

his character was really violent rather than 
strong, and his wife’s calm and resolute voice 
awed, even while it irritated him, so he followed 
her into her room, though not without increased 
anger. She closed the door after him and passed 
into the boudoir that communicated with her 
sleeping room; then she returned and, looking 
him full in the face, said : 

“ Well, what is the meaning of this ?” 

“ Simply that I shall kill Monsieur de Lerne 
to-morrow morning; that is what it means.” 

She struck her hands violently together, and 
continued to gaze at him, with parted lips, like 
one dumb with astonishment. 

“You have defied me long enough, long 
enough ! ” he continued with an oath, lashing 
himself into a still more furious passion by the 
violence of his language. “ Yes, you have dis- 
graced us both, and covered me with ridicule 
long enough, and I am now going to put an end 
to it.” 


152 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


“ You are mad,” she said, quietly. “ But what 
do you mean ? Are you going to challenge 
Monsieur de Lerne ? ” 

“ I am not going to challenge him,” he replied 
in the same brutal manner. “I have already 
done so. We shall fight to-morrow.” 

The unfortunate woman clasped her hands still 
more tightly, and an exclamation of despair 
escaped her. Her husband began to feel some 
degree of shame for his brutality, and he con- 
tinued, hastily and almost stammeringly : 

“ Certainly I had no intention of telling you — 
that is not my way ; but you would have it so. 
You compelled me to tell you by irritating me 
beyond endurance, and he must needs add the 
finishing touch this evening. To continue to pay 
court to the wife, when one is to fight the next 
morning with the husband, is conduct unworthy 
of any honorable man. It is infamous, simply 
infamous ! ” 

“ Monsieur de Lerne has never paid court to 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 153 

me, neither this evening nor at any other time,” 
said Jeanne, vehemently; “at least, not as you 
understand the expression. Your honor has been 
compromised only by yourself. Your duel with 
him would be an act of folly, a sin, a positive 
crime, for I swear to you, and I affirm it before 
God and upon the life of my son, he has never 
been more to me than a friend.” 

“ Oh ! certainly,” replied Baron de Maures- 
camp, sneeringly. “ Well, I think there has been 
enough and more than enough of this ! ” And 
he started towards the door. 

She intercepted him. 

“No, do not go yet, I entreat you,” she 
exclaimed; “ I beseech you not to go yet. If you 
but knew what it is to a woman who has suffered, 
who has struggled, who has been tempted, but 
who has remained good, pure and faithful, to 
see herself not only suspected, but condemned and 
punished with such severity and injustice ! If 
you but knew what is passing in her tortured 


154 THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 

heart ! If you but knew what you will make of 
me by refusing to believe my word, and by treat- 
ing me, who at the very worst have been only 
imprudent, as if I had been guilty of the most 
heinous crimes !” 

“ Oh ! enough, enough !” he repeated, rudely, 
trying to free himself. 

But she maintained her hold, pushing him 
gently backward with a beseeching hand, and he 
finally retreated to the mantel, against which he 
leaned in an attitude of sullen resignation. 

“You know as well as I the history of our 
unfortunate married life,” she continued. “ You 
did not love me long — it was my fault, undoubt- 
edly. I did not please you. My tastes were not 
yours : everything that I did, everything that I 
liked, irritated or bored you. You neglected me ; 
3^011 went back to your pleasures. I felt that I 
could say nothing since I had not the power to 
retain your affection ; but I was quite young 
then, for this was some years ago, and I frankly 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


155 


confess that I was in great peril at the time. 
Alone in the world, despondent, discouraged, 
demoralized, without any faithful friend or 
adviser, surrounded by bad examples, beset by 
evil counsellors, pursued and tempted by per- 
sons whose treachery you did not even suspect — 
yes, — I was at that moment destitute of feeling 
and principle, and on the verge of ruin. Ah ! 
well ! it was friendship that saved me, this same 
friendship that you regard as a crime. Monsieur 
de Lerne has been to me — ” 

“ A brother ! ” interrupted Baron de Maures- 
camp in the same tone of insulting irony. 

“ Yes,” she replied, passionately, “a brother, if 
you like. This much is certain, it was he who 
saved me. When I was about to taste forbidden 
luxuries, he gave me, or rather restored me a 
relish for those that are permissible ; and if your 
wife is a good woman to-day, it is to him that you 
are indebted for it. And now you wish to kill 
him ! Is this just, is it honorable ? ” 


156 THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 

“Just or not, I shall do my best to do so, I 
assure you. Now, let me go.” 

“ But, good God ! what kind of a man are you, if 
you do not believe me, or, if believing me, you still 
persist in your scheme of hatred and vengeance ? 
No, no, I will not cease to appeal to your reason, 
to your justice, to your honor. God knows I 
have no desire to wound you, but in a life like 
ours, in a situation like mine, what is a young 
woman to do with her time, her affection and her 
thoughts ? You have your pleasures ; allow her, 
at least, her friends, and rest assured that you 
must choose between friends whom she acknowl- 
edges, and admirers whom she conceals from 
you.” 

“ Ah ! indeed ! ” exclaimed Baron de Maures- 
camp. “ And what do you desire ? What do 
you ask of me ? Do you pretend to say that I 
should go and offer my hand to Monsieur de 
Lerne, apologize, and entreat him to kindly 
resume his relations with you ? That would be a 
little too much ! ” 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 157 

“ Yes,” she replied, vehemently, “ that is what 
I do ask, and in asking it, I ask of you only an 
absolutely just, honorable and sensible thing, for 
it is really the only way in which you can repair 
the wrong you have done his honor and mine — 
it is the only means of silencing the calumnies 
that may even now be in circulation — calumnies 
to which your conduct this evening will give a 
semblance of truth, alas ! — and of which this duel 
will be an irrefutable authentication! If you 
have courage to do justice to your innocent wife, 
yourself, people will believe you, and, as for me, 
if you only knew how grateful and thankful I 
should be, as I would prove by carefully respect- 
ing your wishes in the future — wishes of which I 
have, perhaps, been too unmindful in the past — 
and who knows but this generous act would form 
a new bond between us, that our hearts, taught 
wisdom by sorrow and experience, might not once 
more be united? — this will depend only upon 
yourself, I assure you — if you would once more 


158 THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


become what you should always have been, my 
best, my only friend.” 

“All this is undoubtedly very fine,” said Baron 
de Maurescamp, sneeringly; “but it is mere 
nonsense ; the same cursed sentimentality that is 
the ruin of all your sex.” 

“But, for Heaven’s sake, only tell me what 
you desire,” continued the unhappy woman, whose 
tears were now flowing in torrents. “ Only tell 
me what you would have me do,” she continued, 
wildly, wringing her hands. “ Do you wish me 
to receive Monsieur de Lerne no longer, to see 
him no more, never to speak to him again, to 
sacrifice this friendship and all I might have in 
the future ? So be it, I promise it ; I pledge 
myself to do it. I will live alone — I will live as 
best I can. Besides, my son is growing up — I 
will devote myself to him ; the child shall be my 
friend. Yes, I feel that it is possible. I swear 
it, and I will keep my word ! But, oh ! in pity, 
in mercy, abandon the idea of this duel. There is 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


159 


no sense, no reason, no justice in it. It is a most 
monstrous thing, I assure you. Look ! I beseech 
you, upon my knees ! ” 

She flung herself at his feet in a passion of 
sobs. 

“ I entreat you with clasped hands, with my 
whole heart, with my tears! Be merciful, I 
entreat you; let me prevail upon you — do not 
drive me to despair ! ” 

“ Bah ! this is melodrama now,” exclaimed 
Baron de Maurescamp, repulsing her. 

She rose from her knees, dashed away her 
tears, and, seizing both his hands in a vise-like 
grasp, she said, in a hollow voice : 

“ Unfortunate man, you do not know what you 
are doing, you do not know. I will not say that 
you are killing me — that would be saying too 
little — you are sending me straight to perdition.” 

Then, suddenly releasing his hands, she added : 

“ You can go. Farewell ! ” 

Baron de Maurescamp left the room. 


160 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


For some little time after her husband’s depart- 
ure, Jeanne remained seated upon the floor, over- 
whelmed with despair, her hair partially unbound, 
and her eyes dry and glassy. She was at last 
aroused from her stupor by several timid knocks 
at the door. She instantly rose. The next 
moment her maid entered, and said : 

“ Madame, the Countess de Lerne is below and 
wishes to know if she can see Madame for a 
moment.” 

“ The Countess de Lerne ? ” 

“ Yes, Madame. Shall I say that Madame is 
not well ? Madame seems to be suffering.” 

“ Show her up at once.” 

Almost immediately the Countess de Lerne 
entered, livid in her pallor, her eyes haggard, and 
all her features convulsed and distorted. With- 
out seeming to notice the state of agitation in 
which she found Jeanne, she walked straight up 
to her, and, looking her full in the eyes, said : 

“ Your husband fights to-morrow with my son ! ” 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 161 

“I know it,” replied Jeanne; “he has just 
told me.” 

“ Ah ! he has just told you,” repeated the old 
lady, bitterly. “ It is the act of a scoundrel.” 

“Yes,” said Jeanne, quietly. “But you, how 
did you hear of it ? ” 

“ Through Louis, my son’s old servant, who 
suspected something of the kind, and succeeded in 
discovering all the arrangements of the seconds.” 

“ You know, Madame, that there is nothing 
wrong between your son and myself,” said 
Jeanne, quietly. 

To tell the truth, this was news to the aged 
Countess, and, in the agitation of the moment, 
she could not conceal a sort of naïve surprise. 

“ But are there any proofs of this ? ” she asked. 

“ Proofs of what, since there is nothing ? ” 
inquired Jeanne. 

“ And your husband will not believe you ? ” 

“No.” 

“ Then there is no hope ? ” 

10 


162 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


“ None.” 

Madame de Lerne sank into an arm-chair, 
where she sat silent and motionless. 

After a silence, Jeanne, who had been walking 
nervously to and fro, paused before her. 

“ Is your son at home ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“Is your carriage below ? ” persisted Jeanne. 
“ It is ? Then, let us start at once. I am going 
home with you. I must see him.” 

As she spoke, she threw a veil over her head 
and wrapped her furs around her. 

Madame de Lerne had risen in evident per- 
plexity. 

“ Is this prudent ? ” she asked. 

“ Can matters be any worse ? ” responded 
Jeanne, with a gesture of supreme indifference, 
and she almost dragged her visitor away. Mad- 
ame de Lerne lived on the Avenue Montaigne, so 
the drive was only the affair of a moment. On 
the way she repeated, in incoherent words, all 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


163 


she had learned, the pretended cause of the duel, 
the names of the seconds, the weapons chosen, 
and the hour and place of meeting. 

It was about one o’clock in the morning, and 
Jacques had completed his final arrangements, 
when he was startled beyond measure to see the 
door of his library suddenly open to admit 
Madame de Maurescamp. 

“ Good heavens ! you ! ” he exclaimed. “ Is 
it possible ! ” 

“ Yes ; we have heard all, your mother and I,” 
cried Jeanne, breathlessly, “and I have come. 
I was determined to come, and here I am ! ” 

“ My mother, too ! ” murmured Jacques. “Ah ! 
how unfortunate ! But, my poor, dear friend, 
why did you come here ? This step will be your 
rum ! 

“I know it,” she said, despairingly, sinking into 
a chair, “ but I was determined to see you once 
more.” 

She was sobbing piteously. 


164 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


“ My dear lady, my poor child,” he said, gently, 
taking her hand, “ calm yourself, I entreat you, 
and return home as quickly as possible. Be 
assured that this duel, which troubles you so much, 
will be a mere nothing. Between two men who 
know how to handle a sword and who are about 
equally matched, a duel is never anything more 
than a trifling matter.” 

“ But he hates you so bitterly/’ she exclaimed. 

Her sobs choked her. 

“So it is all ended, ended forever. What 
injustice. Oh ! my God ! what injustice ! ” 

“ My dear child,” he repeated, “ go at once, I 
beseech you. You would not deprive me of my 
calmness at such a moment, I am sure. Tell my 
mother that I entreat her to be reasonable. Tell 
her there is not the slightest danger, not the 
slightest, if she will only abstain from disturbing 
my composure.” 

“Farewell, then,” she said, rising, “farewell. 
We have loved each other well, have we not?” 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


165 


“ Yes, my child, yes.” 

She gazed at him several seconds without 
speaking ; then, drawing a little closer : 

“ Yes, yes,” she repeated. 

Then, lifting her face to his : 

“ Kiss me on the forehead,” she said. “ If you 
die, that will be something.” 

He just touched her hair with his lips ; then, 
holding her by the arm, he led her out of the 
room and to the head of the stairs. 

“ Hasten back to your home,” he said, hur- 
riedly, kissing her hands. 

Then he left her. 


166 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


CHAPTER Xn. 

A DAY OF DOOM. 

M ADAME DE MAURESCAMP returned home 
at once, accompanied by Madame de Lerne. 
Her absence had been very short ; the servants 
saw nothing extraordinary in it, and her impru- 
dent step did not come to the knowledge of her 
husband. 

Overcome by weariness and emotion, she had 
just fallen asleep about five o’clock in the morn- 
ing, when a sound above her head awoke her. 
She heard footsteps hurrying to and fro, and 
the occasional fall of some article upon the floor, 
and she knew that her husband and his valet 
were hastily proceeding with their preparations 
for departure. A little later, the roll of carriage 
wheels was heard on the pavement of the court- 
yard, then under the arched gateway. He was 
gone. 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 167 

She rose. Her brain seemed on fire. She 
opened one of the windows of her chamber which 
overlooked the garden, and rested her folded 
arms upon the sill. The sky, the clouds, the 
walls and the budding leaves all wore a strange 
and almost fantastic aspect in her eyes, and she 
heard only vaguely the joyful twitter of a flock 
of sparrows which were blithely greeting the 
dawn of a beautiful spring morning. 

She suddenly aroused herself from her mourn- 
ful reverie to go to her son’s room and preside, as 
usual, over the child’s morning toilet; and she 
prolonged this task as much as she could, in order 
to keep up the illusion of a peaceful and regular 
state of things as long as possible. 

As the mo rning wore on, her loneliness, in the 
midst of the anxieties and fears that were torturing 
her, became intolerable, and she decided to send 
for her mother. In her generous tenderness she 
had hesitated to ask her to share this day of 
anguish, but she felt that her reason was for- 


168 THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 

saking her, so she wrote a few lines to Madame 
de Latour-Mesnil, informing her of what had 
occurred, and hastily despatched the note. 

If Jeanne's mother has ceased to figure in these 
pages for some time, it is only due to the fact 
that we have had nothing to say in regard to her 
that the reader could not easily divine. A single 
word will suffice in this connection. She was 
slowly dying of disappointment concerning the 
grand marriage she had effected for her daugh- 
ter. Mental trouble had brought on a disease of 
the liver complicated by grave disorders of the 
heart. It was in vain that Jeanne had spared her 
mother not only reproaches but confidences. 
Madame de Latour-Mesnil was too true a woman 
and mother, and she had suffered too much herself, 
not to divine the unfortunate truth, and she could 
not forgive herself for the strange blindness which 
had condemned her daughter to a fate far worse 
than her own. Some mothers console themselves 
for their daughters' marital unhappiness by the 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


169 


forbidden happiness they see or imagine they see 
them enjoying ; but Madame de Latour-Mesnil 
was not a woman of that stamp, and if anything 
could aggravate the sorrow and remorse she felt 
at the irremediable misfortune she had brought 
upon her daughter, it was the terrible fear that 
she might, at the same time, have doomed her 
to shame and disgrace. She had suffered cruel 
anxiety on this account, and the only happy day 
she had known for years was one of quite recent 
date, when her daughter, comprehending her 
mother’s perplexity in regard to her friendly 
relations with Monsieur de Lerne, had flung her 
arms about her neck, exclaiming : 

“ See how I embrace you. I could not embrace 
you like this if I were a guilty woman. I should 
not dare Î ” 

Madame de Latour-Mesnil, whose first intima- 
tion of Baron de Maurescamp’s duel with the 
Count de Lerne had been received from Jeanne’s 
note, reached her daughter’s house about noon. 


170 THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 

There were more tears than words between the 
two ladies at first. But, after the first paroxysm 
of grief had subsided, Jeanne found a sort of 
comfort in answering her mother’s eager ques- 
tions, and in telling her all she knew in regard to 
the particulars of the quarrel, of the incidents at 
the ball, the scene she had had with her husband 
on her return home, and even of her clandestine 
visit to Jacques de Lerne. 

While she talked with feverish volubility, some- 
times walking, sometimes sitting, she was con- 
tinually casting hasty and anxious glances at the 
clock on the mantel. The duel was to take place 
at three o’clock ; she knew this, and, in propor- 
tion as the fatal hour approached, she grew more 
agitated, but less loquacious ; her mechanical walk 
from room to room became more rapid, her face 
grew flushed, and she could only murmur at 
intervals phrases that were almost childish in 
their utter self-abandonment : “ Oh ! mamma ! 

my poor mamma! What cruelty! What injus- 
tice ! Oh ! my God ! what injustice ! ” 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


171 


Her mother, alarmed at her excitement, rose 
and tried to lead her away, saying : “ Come to 

your own room, my child; come and pray! ” 
“Pray, mother?” she cried, almost rudely. 
“ And for whom do you wish me to pray ? For 
my husband, or for the other ? Do you wish me 
to play the hypocrite ? ” 

“ Ah ! pray for your poor mother, who has so 
much need of forgiveness ! ” exclaimed Madame 
de Latour-Mesnil, sinking upon her knees, and 
hiding her face in her hands. 

“Mother! mother!” cried Jeanne, lifting her 
forcibly and pressing her to her heart ; “ what 
have I to forgive ? Was I not deceived as well 
as you ? ” 

“ Ah ! you were excusable, but there was no 
excuse for me. I was your mother ; I was your 
guide and counsellor. Ah ! how greatly I was to 
blame, how greatly I was to blame for not making 
a better choice for you ! You were so worthy of 
happiness, my poor darling ! You were such an 


172 THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 

honest, conscientious woman, and see to what I 
have brought you ! ” 

“But I am still an honest woman, mother,” 
said Jeanne, in an abstracted tone. 

Then, suddenly lifting her forefinger, she 
pointed to the dial of the clock, and Madame 
de Latour-Mesnil saw that it marked the hour of 
three. A strange smile contracted Jeanne’s 
lips. She took her mother’s arm and walked 
slowly to and fro with her without speaking, 
though, from time to time she sighed deeply. 

At the end of several moments, she said : 

“ It is probably over by this time, for, in such 
affairs, the parties are very punctual, and it does 
not last long, I have heard. But it is frightful 
to think that we shall hear nothing for two or 
three hours. I have done something, mother, 
which you will not approve, perhaps, but to 
whom could I apply for news? I could not 
expect to hear until to-morrow, for Baron 
de Maurescamp, of course, will not write to me ; 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 173 

so I asked Louis, Monsieur de Lerne’s old servant, 
who has accompanied his master, to send me a 
telegram as soon as it was possible for him to 
do so.” 

Madame de Latour-Mesnil replied only by a 
slight movement of the head. 

Just at that moment they heard the vestibule 
bell ring. This bell was connected with the por- 
ter's lodge, and, as express orders had been given 
that the doors of the hôtel should be kept rigor- 
ously closed, this announcement of a visitor 
seemed singular. 

“ Already ! ” " murmured Jeanne, hastening 
to a window that overlooked the court -yard. 
“ Already ! But it is impossible ! ” 

She drew aside the curtain, and recognized in 
the person who was ascending the steps a pro- 
fessor of fencing, named Lavarède, who was in 
the habit of coming three times a week to prac- 
tise with Baron de Maurescamp. Exceedingly 
jealous of his reputation as a skilful swordsman, 


174 THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 

Baron de Maurescamp, though an assiduous 
attendant at the fencing-school, was also very 
fond of practising at home, possibly that he 
might not reveal the secrets of his method to 
the public. 

The advent of this unexpected visitor, at such 
a time and under such circumstances, astonished 
and alarmed both Jeanne and her mother, and 
they were discussing the subject in anxious 
whispers when a servant appeared at the door. 

“ Monsieur Lavarède, the fencing-master, is 
here, Madame,” he said. “ He was not aware 
that the Baron had gone away. He wishes to 
know if the Baron will be absent long, and if he 
is to come again day after to-morrow, as usual.” 

“Tell him I do not know,” replied Jeanne. 
“We will send and inform him.” 

The servant withdrew, but, after an instant’s 
reflection, Jeanne recalled him. 

“Auguste, I wish to speak with Monsieur 
Lavarède,” she said, imperiously. “ Show him 
into the dining-room. I will come down.” 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 175 

Then, turning to Madame de Latour-Mesnil, 
she said : 

“ Come with me. I wish to say a few words to 
this man, and then we will go into the garden. 
The air will do us good; besides, it is very 
pleasant this afternoon. Come.” 

They went down together arm in arm, and 
found in the dining-room a man about forty years 
of age, whose erect bearing proclaimed him a sol- 
dier in spite of the civilian’s garb he wore. “ I 
desire to speak with you, sir,” said Madame de 
Maurescamp, hesitatingly. “ My husband left for 
Belgium this morning. You seem to be ignorant 
of the object of his journey.” 

“ Yes, Madame, I am ignorant of it.” 

“ Have not the servants told you ? ” 

“No, Madame.” 

“ Perhaps, they, themselves, are ignorant of it ; 
it has all happened so quickly. Well, sir, you 
must mistrust the object of this journey; you 
certainly perceive the great distress in which 


176 THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 

you find my mother and myself. At this very 
moment, Baron de Maurescamp is fighting a duel.” 

The visitor replied only by a slight movement 
of surprise and a grave bow. 

“ Monsieur/’ resumed Madame de Maurescamp, 
whose manner was both brusque and embarrassed, 
“you must understand our anxiety. Can you 
say nothing to reassure us ? ” 

“ Pardon me, Madame, but may I ask the name 
of his adversary ?” 

“ His adversary is the Count de Lerne.” 

“ Oh ! in that case, Madame, I think you need 
have no fears,” replied the fencing-master with a 
faint smile. 

“ No fears ? And why ? ” asked Jeanne, look- 
ing intently at the speaker. 

“The Count de Lerne, Madame,” replied the 
fencing-master, “ is one of the frequenters of our 
establishment — at least, he used to be — and I 
know his status perfectly. He fences very well, 
and at one time he might have been able to 
compete with B|aron de Maurescamp, but since he 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 177 

was wounded in the arm in his duel with Monsieur 
de Monthelin, he has lost much of his skill ; he 
tires very quickly, and I have not the slightest 
doubt that the Baron will easily conquer him. I 
am sure Madame need have no fears.” 

“ Then you think he will kill Monsieur de 
Lerne?” Jeanne asked, after a pause. 

“ Oh! kill him, I hope not, but he will certainly 
wound or disarm him — the latter, most probably 
— at least, if the quarrel is not very serious.” 

“But, sir, you think — you are sure — that I 
have nothing to fear — for my husband — that he 
cannot be hurt ? ” faltered Jeanne. 

“ I am sure of it, Madame.” 

“ Ah ! well ! sir, I thank you. I bid you good 
morning, sir.” 

She watched him until he had left the room ; 
then, seizing her mother by the arm : 

“ Ah ! mother,” she cried in a choked voice, “ I 
feel that I am becoming a criminal ! ” 

The low French windows of the dining-room 

11 


178 THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 

were on a level with the garden. The mother 
and daughter entered it and seated themselves, 
side by side, on a bench surrounded by a hedge of 
already budding lilacs. They had scarcely seated 
themselves, when Jeanne passionately resumed : 

“ Mother, if he kills him after what this man 
has told us, it will be nothing more or less than 
murder.’' 

“ My dearest child, I entreat you to calm your- 
self. You grieve me so much, so much ! Besides, 
what this man has told us is calculated to inspire 
hope rather than despair, for your husband is not 
a monster, and there are some things that are 
impossible between men of honor. If Monsieur 
de Lerne is really disabled in his right arm — ” 

“He is,” interrupted Jeanne; “I have observed 
it more than once.” 

“ Then your husband will certainly notice it,” 
continued Madame de Latour-Mesnil, “ and he 
will be content with disarming him.” 

“ Ah ! mother, he hates him so intensely ! And 
then he is not kind at heart; he is vindictive.” 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 179 

Nevertheless, she clung to the hope that her 
mother had suggested. Yes, it did, indeed, seem 
reasonable. After all, Baron de Maurescamp 
was a man of honor in the general acceptation of 
the term. He would not be likely to take an 
unfair advantage of an inequality of strength, 
and, besides, during the journey he would cer- 
tainly recollect what his wife had said to him the 
evening before; he would have time to reflect 
more coolly; he could not but be almost certain 
of her innocence, and be half-appeased and less 
hungry for vengeance. 

Nor was the soothing and beneficent influence 
that emanated from everything around her, with- 
out its effect ; she felt it in the quiet of the large 
garden with its high, cloister-like walls, in the 
pure air, the blue sky, the scent of the budding 
verdure and the beauty of the declining day. 
The imagination finds it difficult to associate 
scenes of blood and violence with the charming 
and unalterable serenity of nature, and it seems 
to those who are surrounded by the tranquillity 


180 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


of the country or a garden that peace must be 
reigning everywhere, even as it is reigning 
around them. 

So, as the hours went by, bringing no new 
emotion, their former excitement gradually subsi- 
ded, and, as Jeanne and her mother sat there 
silently, hand in hand, both experienced an 
almost pleasant feeling of torpor after the 
intense agitation of the day. 

It was a little past five o’clock, when Jeanne 
suddenly sprang up. She had heard the bell 
again resound in the hall. 

“ It has come this time ! ” she exclaimed. 

Two minutes passed. Jeanne and her mother 
remained motionless*, with eyes riveted upon the 
hall door. A servant appeared upon the thresh- 
old, waiter in hand. 

“ A telegram for Madame.” 

“ Give it to me,” said Jeanne, advancing a few 
steps towards him. 

She waited until the servant had retired ; 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


181 


then, without opening the despatch, she turned 
and looked at her mother. 

“Let me open it,” murmured Madame de 
Latour-Mesnil, trying to take the telegram. 

“ No,” her daughter replied, smiling. “ I shall 
have courage ! ” 

She tore open the envelope. But her glance 
had scarcely fallen on the despatch when it slip- 
ped from her hands. Her eyes became fixed, her 
lips quivered convulsively, and, throwing up her 
clasped hands with a prolonged shriek that 
resounded throughout the entire house, she fell 
upon the gravel at her mother’s feet, cold and 
rigid. As the servants rushed out in response to 
this despairing cry, Madame de Latour-Mesnil, 
frantic with grief, bent over her daughter, and, 
while lavishing eYery care upon her, anxiously 
seized the telegram. This is what she read : 

“Soignies, 3.30 P. M. 

“ Monsieur Jacques, mortally wounded, has 
just breathed his last. “Louis.” 


182 THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 

CHAPTER XIII. 

A STRANGE TRANSFORMATION. 

BOUT six months later, in the middle of 



jljL October of the same year, we find Baron 
and Madame de Maurescamp installed at La 
Vénerie , a magnificent estate, situated midway 
between Greil and Compiègne, and which Baron 
de Maurescamp had purchased about eighteen 
months previous. He was extremely fond of 
hunting, and the fact that the sport at La 
Vénerie was uncommonly fine had induced him 
to purchase the estate, so he would no longer 
be obliged to rent a different hunting lodge 
each year. He had invited a* large number of 
guests for the opening of the season, among 
others Messieurs de Monthelin, d’Hermany, de 
la Jardye and Sa ville, towards whom Madame 
de Maurescamp performed her duties as hostess 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 183 

with much good tact, grace and even gayety. It 
was generally thought that this gayety was rather 
unseemly, and that, after having been the con- 
scious or unconscious cause of a man’s death so 
short a time before, she ought to feel, or, at 
least, pretend to feel, a certain melancholy. But 
a woman’s heart is an impenetrable mystery. 

After the duel which had ended so fatally to 
the Count de Lerne, no argument or entreaty 
could induce Jeanne de Maurescamp to remain 
under her husband’s roof and await his return ; 
and she had taken refuge in her mother’s house 
that same evening, carrying her son with her. 
The delicate task of arranging with Baron de 
Maurescamp the conditions of a mode of life 
suitable under the circumstances devolved upon 
Madame de Latour-Mesnil, who found her son- 
in-law less difficult to deal with than she had 
expected. He was not sorry to be freed from the 
necessity of immediate personal contact with his 
wife, feeling that he had, perhaps, gone rather 


184 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


too far, on the strength of mere suspicions, in 
the case of Monsieur de Lerne. The fact that 
one has killed a man is not a pleasant thought to 
any person, and, though Baron de Maurescamp 
was not prone to sentiment, he experienced a sort 
of vague remorse, which revealed itself in the 
conciliatory manner he displayed towards his 
mother-in-law. So it was agreed that Madame 
de Maurescamp should keep her son, and that she 
should accompany her mother first to Vichy, and 
then to Vevey, in Switzerland, where they would 
spend the summer. During this interval, the 
mutual resentment of the husband and wife 
would be softened and appeased all the more cer- 
tainly, since, according to Madame de Latour- 
Mesnil, the whole unfortunate affair had been 
only a series of misunderstandings. 

The duel had kept Paris in a state of excite- 
ment for a week, but the final result was a ver- 
dict favorable to Madame de Maurescamp. There 
had been such a great disparity between the 


TOE HISTORY OE A PARISIENNE. 


185 


cruelty of the denouement and the very slight 
imprudence of conduct with which one could 
reproach Jeanne and Monsieur de Lerne that a 
very general sympathy was awakened, and cal- 
umny was disarmed. It was the almost unani- 
mous opinion that Baron de Maurescamp had 
displayed a most unwarranted ferocity and im- 
placability against a man whose only crime had 
really been reading with his wife, and these 
rumors, by appeasing Baron de Maurescamp’s 
vanity and flattering his pride, did not a little to 
facilitate the reunion of the estranged couple. 

At first, Madame de Maurescamp had absolutely 
refused to entertain the idea of any such arrange- 
ment for a moment, but, after two or three 
months had passed in a sort of despairing stupor, 
she seemed to suddenly awake one day, and, after 
some reflections which she confided to no one, 
she informed her mother that she would follow 
her advice and return to her husband ; she asked 
only a few months’ delay. 


186 THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 

“ He must have time to dry his hands,” she 
remarked, not without bitterness. 

After this decision was made, her mood changed 
wonderfully ; she seemed to acquire a new taste 
for life, and her interest in the future became 
sufficiently lively to restore much of her old-time 
activity and animation. 

She had, consequently, rejoined her husband 
in Paris late in the month of September, and had 
resumed her home life as quietly as if she had 
just returned from an ordinary journey. To tell 
the truth, Baron de Maurescamp appeared the 
more embarrassed of the two. As they had never 
been in the habit of displaying much affection 
for each other, there was no perceptible change 
in their relations now. She just touched, with 
a faint smile, the hand he offered ; and the health 
of their son Robert, his improved appearance and 
rapid growth furnished them with topics of con- 
versation that soon set them at ease. A few days 
later, they took up their abode at La Vénerie , 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


1ST 


where the presence of their guests spared them 
the constraint of a prolonged tête-à-tête. 

As one may very readily suppose, Madame de 
Maurescamp was, at first, an object of great curi- 
osity to the guests at the chateau, and to her 
country neighbors. It was impossible not to 
watch with eager attention the countenance and 
demeanor of a lady, whose name had been so 
recently involved in a tragical affair that was still 
shrouded in so much mystery. But the efforts 
of the curious went unrewarded. Jeanne’s man- 
ner was perfectly natural and composed, and, 
unless one were to suppose her endowed with 
great powers of dissimulation — which it is gener- 
ally safe, it is true, to ascribe to her sex — one 
was compelled to believe that she had quite for- 
gotten the griefs and annoyances that had so 
recently beset her. It even appeared, as we 
have previously remarked, that she scarcely 
manifested a sufficient amount of regret for a 
man who had died for her, and who had, at least, 
been her friend. 


188 ■ THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 

“ It is really discouraging/’ “ the handsome 
Saville ” exclaimed to Madame d’Hermany one 
day. “If poor de Lerne could return to the 
world for a few moments, he would be con- 
foundedly surprised.” 

“ But why, my friend ? ” 

“ Because it is actually revolting, upon my 
word ! ” replied Saville, who, though not by any 
means a genius, had really a kind heart. “ One 
would suppose that the poor fellow’s death had 
been a positive relief to her ! Never have I seen 
her in such exuberant spirits. Catch me getting 
myself killed for any woman ! ” 

“ No one thinks of killing you, my dear. Have 
no fears ; and as to my friend Jeanne, she is a 
difficult person to read. I do not know what is 
going on in her pretty head, but there is some- 
thing in her eyes that would not please me much 
if I were her husband.” 

y I have not noticed anything of the kind/* 
returned Saville. 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


189 


“ You ! of course not ! ” was the rejoinder. 

His wife’s gayety, though it shocked every one 
around him, was by no means displeasing to 
Baron de Maurescamp ; on the contrary, it 
seemed to afford him infinite satisfaction. “ She 
is a different woman !” he exclaimed, “ an 
entirely different woman ! She is thoroughly 
trained now. All. women need training, that is 
my theory. Since my wife received her lesson, 
a rather severe one, it is true, she has come to 
her senses, and is a hundred times more con- 
tented and agreeable than before. The system 
is perfect, perfect I ” 

A change which was exceedingly strange and 
well worthy of interest had, indeed, taken place in 
Jeanne’s tastes and habits. Instead of devoting 
herself as formerly to pursuits of an intellectual 
character, she seemed to have suddenly acquired 
a taste for entirely different pleasures. She 
never opened a book ; her piano remained closed ; 
her diary was no longer made the recipient of her 


190 THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 

secret thoughts or of extracts from her favorite 
poets; she had lost that proneness to emotion 
and enthusiasm which had formerly distinguished 
her, and she had contracted that vulgar and 
detestable Parisian habit of perpetual levity. 
She followed the hounds through the forests of 
Compiègne, hunted on foot in the woods of La 
Vénerie , and showed herself a no less untiring 
waltzer every evening. Gentlemen had never 
found her so attractive ; and we are forced to 
add that they had never before suspected her of 
being so coquettish, for she had become so, and 
even in this pleasing art she displayed the inor- 
dinate zeal of a debutante who has not yet gained 
a correct idea of just how far she can go with pro- 
priety. As a natural consequence, her manner 
and language sometimes overstepped the bounds 
that separate the upper from the lower classes. 
But this did not displease Baron de Maures- 
camp ; it amused him, and he laughed about it 
in company with his friends. 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


191 


“ She is beginning a new existence/’ he said, 
“ and her manner is slightly exaggerated. Indeed, 
she is much like the newly married people who 
talk all sorts of nonsense the day after their 
wedding ; but it will pass -off.” 

But for all that, he finally came to the conclu- 
sion that his wife did display rather too marked 
a predilection for gentlemen’s society. They 
were her chosen companions in her walks and 
hunting excursions, and also in the billiard-room; 
but it surprised him a little to see her follow them 
into the saddle-room, where they assembled 
almost every morning to practise fencing. It 
was a spacious room, paved in mosaic, comforta- 
bly warmed, cheerfully lighted, and admirably 
adapted to this kind of sport. High benches of 
wicker work lined the sides of the room, and 
served as seats for the lookers on. The first time 
that Baron de Maurescamp and his guests sud- 
denly discovered, through the dense clouds of 
tobacco smoke that filled the apartment, Jeanne 


192 THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 

de Maurescamp seated upon one of these benches, 
they experienced a feeling not only of surprise 
but of positive annoyance. She had entered 
noiselessly, and, after seating herself in silence, 
she began to watch those who were fencing with 
the closest attention. It seemed to every one 
exceedingly strange that a person, who was gen- 
erally considered susceptible and sensitive, should 
come to witness a scene that could not fail to 
awaken extremely unpleasant memories. It was 
necessary to accustom themselves to her presence, 
however, for, from that day she never failed to 
visit the saddle-room at the hour Baron de 
Maurescamp was accustomed to repair there with 
his guests. This singular young woman seemed 
to watch their every movement with impassioned 
interest. Leaning slightly forward, her face 
grave and her eyes fixed, she seemed entirely 
absorbed in contemplating each thrust and coui> 
ter thrust exchanged between the adversaries ; 
but it was when her husband engaged in the 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


193 


contest that her curiosity and interest seemed to 
attain their highest degree of intensity. Under 
such circumstances, she became so absorbed that 
her very breathing appeared to be suspended, 
and her close attention seemed to annoy even 
Baron de Maurescamp. 

By dint of this close application, Jeanne soon 
gained considerable knowledge of the art of 
fencing and learned to form a tolerably correct 
estimate of the relative skill of the different 
swordsmen. In this way, she was soon able to 
satisfy herself that her husband was, indeed, as 
she had heard, a skilful swordsman of unusual 
strength and endurance, and that there was only 
one of his guests who was at all able to compete 
with him. This was Monsieur de Monthelin. On 
two or three occasions he had even worsted his 
host, which fact had won him several gracious 
words from Madame de Maurescamp. 

12 


194 THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


CHAPTER XIV. 

SCHEMES OF VENGEANCE. 

I T is scarcely necessary to say that Monsieur 
de Monthelin, on finding himself freed from 
the rivalry of the Count de Lerne, had cautiously 
resumed his former rôle of suitor and consoler. 
Up to this time he had considered himself seri- 
ously encouraged, and he was beginning to cherish 
very sanguine hopes of ultimate success when an 
unexpected event suddenly brought all his plans 
to grief. 

In addition to his city guests and his neigh- 
bors, Baron de Maurescamp occasionally invited 
officers from the garrison at Compiègne, whom 
he had known in Paris or met in the course of 
his hunting expeditions, to hunt with him at La 
Vénerie. These officers were, for the most part, 
thorough men of the world and unexceptionable 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 195 

in manners, but there was one who was a notable 
exception, and whose presence at La Vénerie 
occasioned considerable surprise. This was a 
young captain of chasseurs, named de Sontis, 
well born, but extremely ill-bred. Nor did his 
personal appearance at all atone for what he 
lacked in social and moral distinction. He was 
small of stature, slender and pale, with thin, 
light hair, gray eyes, and a hard and cynical 
expression ; but he was an accomplished sports- 
man, and not only thoroughly conversant with all 
matters connected with riding, horse-racing and 
hunting, but an executant of superior skill. It 
was by means of these qualities that he had made 
a conquest of Baron de Maurescamp, who had 
recently taken it into his head to make up a stable 
of racers, and who was constantly conferring with 
Captain de Sontis on this important subject, and 
spoke very highly of his valuable advice. 

Madame de Maurescamp, on the contrary, had 
taken a strong dislike to the young man at first 


196 the history of a parisienne. 

sight, and made no effort to conceal her antipathy. 
Hence it was with no little annoyance that she 
saw him establish himself at La Vénerie early in 
November for a stay of three weeks, at the 
invitation of Baron de Maurescamp, for until 
then he had only breakfasted or dined at the 
chateau on the occasion of some hunting party. 

The first morning he spent at the chateau, 
Captain de Sontis was courteously invited to 
accompany Baron de Maurescamp and two or 
three guests to the fencing-hall to practise a little 
if he felt inclined. Captain de Sontis replied 
that he would be delighted to rub the rust off a 
little ; it had been such a long time since he had 
handled a foil. After sparring against the wall 
for some moments, he accepted a challenge to a 
slight bout from the master of the house. They 
began, and Baron de Maurescamp was greatly 
astonished to find a formidable opponent in this 
extremely insignificant person. This small and 
apparently delicate young man had the keen eye, 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 197 

wonderful suppleness and cunning of a tiger. 
Though a little surprised at first by the unusual 
vigor of Baron de Maurescamp’s blows, he 
speedily recovered himself and at last gained 
a decisive advantage. Baron de Maurescamp, 
considerably piqued, laughingly remarked that he 
hoped to have his revenge the next day. 

“Very well,” responded Captain de Sontis; 
“I am entirely at your service, but I warn you 
that I have you in my power now, and that you 
can touch me only when I choose.” 

“We will see,” said Baron de Maurescamp, dryly. 

Jeanne had been present that morning, as usual, 
and she left the room with an air of thoughtful 
gravity she had not worn since she entered upon 
her new life. She seemed preoccupied all day. 

She did not fail to visit the fencing-hall the 
following morning. 

Baron de Maurescamp and Captain de Sontis 
began a combat to which the little episode of 
the preceding day lent an unusual interest. The 


198 THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 

curiosity of all the spectators was evidently 
aroused, but that of Madame de Maurescamp 
was excited to an intense degree, and her con- 
tracted features, while she followed all the differ- 
ent phases of the struggle, indicated an interest, 
or, rather, an anxiety, quite disproportionate to 
the circumstances. 

This passa ge-at-arms ended disastrously for the 
Baron. The young officer of chasseurs, though 
by no means his host’s equal in physical strength, 
had muscles of steel in spite of his rather frail 
appearance. He was a thorough master of the 
art of fencing, and he had quickly discerned the 
peculiarities and faults of Baron de Maurescamp’s 
really admirable method. He had noticed, too, 
that his opponent made the usual mistake of very 
powerful and sanguine men, that is to say, he 
was inclined to depend too much upon strength, 
and to unconsciously despise the aid of skill. 
Himself endowed with incomparable suppleness 
and precision of movement, and with an eye as 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


199 


steady as his hand, Captain de Sontis was more 
than a match for his adversary. He harassed 
and confused him by pretended passes, and, when- 
ever his opponent was off guard for an instant, 
as often happens with violent swordsmen, he 
always took advantage of the opportunity to 
drive his foil home with marvellous rapidity. 
Baron de Maurescamp seemed to have an invisi- 
ble and intangible sword constantly before him, 
which he felt only when it touched his breast. 
In short, he received five or six blows of the 
button during the contest, but did not succeed 
in giving a single one. 

Baron de Maurescamp’s extremely sensitive 
self-love would not allow him to acknowledge his 
decided inferiority. He merely remarked that he 
was not quite in the mood for fencing that day, 
but, though the contest was renewed several times 
during the ensuing week, he succeeded no better, 
and, though he did manage two or three times in 
as many successive struggles to touch Captain de 


200 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


Sontis with the end of his foil, it was evident to 
every one that the Captain permitted it merely 
through politeness. From that time forth, Baron de 
Maurescamp, angry and humiliated, always found 
some pretext for abstaining from the exercise. 

Women love the valiant and successful. It 
was, doubtless, on account of this noble trait, so 
noticeable in her sex, that Madame de Maures- 
camp seemed to suddenly forgive the young 
officer for his unprepossessing appearance and 
bad reputation, and began to show special favor 
to the man she had formerly treated with a 
scornful indifference bordering upon aversion. 
Captain de Sontis was so little accustomed to 
such good fortune that he scarcely understood the 
nature of the attentions with which he was hon- 
ored. He responded to them at first with great 
reserve ; perhaps as his experience had been 
limited to the decidedly commonplace and vulgar 
love affairs of garrison life, he felt rather 
ill at ease in the presence of an elegant and 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


201 


refined woman like Jeanne de Maurescamp ; per- 
haps — for he was exceedingly shrewd — he sus- 
pected that some snare was concealed beneath 
the favor of which he, possibly, had the good 
sense to realize his unworthiness. 

Strange as it may seem, there appeared to be 
no possible doubt that this beautiful, refined and 
chaste woman had become infatuated with this 
undeniably vulgar man. During the last week of 
his sojourn at La Vénerie , the signs of Jeanne’s 
mad passion betrayed themselves more and more 
unmistakably to the curious or jealous eyes that 
were watching. 

Not a little astonishment was felt that such a 
marked infatuation should escape the notice of 
the person most interested, that is to say Baron 
de Maurescamp, who had previously given proofs 
of such keen susceptibility in such matters ; and 
even more amazement was excited by Madame 
de Maurescamp’s want of ordinary prudence. 
She often favored her husband with the spectacle 


202 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


of her whispered asides with Captain de Sontis ; 
she awkwardly chose the very moment when the 
Baron was crossing the court-yard to throw one 
of the flowers from her bouquet de corsage to 
the young officer ; she invited him to act as her 
escort on her rides, in which expeditions they 
sometimes lost their way in the woods and 
returned only at nightfall, just as Baron de 
Maurescamp was beginning to grow impatient, if 
not anxious. Finally, she waltzed the entire 
evening with the Captain, talking to him with 
her face close to his and with smiles and glances 
that could scarcely fail to set his blood on fire. 

In spite of the reserve and distrust Captain 
de Sontis had shown in the beginning, it was 
impossible for him to resist such allurements 
long. Perhaps, he had also received sufficient 
proofs of Jeanne’s preference to dispel his former 
apprehensions. However this may have been, 
he soon began to share the violent passion he 
appeared to have inspired, and he even displayed 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


203 


in this love affair, which was so novel to him, a 
kind of grim ferocity that seemed to afford 
Madame de Maurescamp considerable amusement. 

Baron de Maurescamp continued oblivious, at 
least, apparently. Still, from some cause or 
other, he seemed preoccupied, and was less 
pompous, noisy and arrogant than usual. He 
had become almost melancholy, and livid spots 
were sometimes visible on his ruddy face. A 
keen observer would also have been struck with 
the undisguisedly ironical glances his wife 
bestowed upon him, and under which he was 
evidently far from comfortable. 

The 28th of November was the last day Cap- 
tain de Sontis was to spend at the chateau. 
There was no hunt that day, and Baron de 
Maurescamp went out immediately after break- 
fast to superintend some repairs that were to be 
made to the house of the keeper. In returning 
to the chateau, he was in the habit of forsaking 
the main avenue that led through the park and 


204 THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 

taking a footpath known as “ Diana’s walk/' 
which shortened the way considerably. This 
path traversed a dense thicket, which had been 
a portion of the old park and which was to be 
transformed into an orchard ; but, in the mean- 
time, it remained in a neglected state and 
formed a sort of small and lonely sacred grove. 
The walk owed its name to an old statue of 
Diana, of which the body alone remained, the 
head of the goddess having fallen off and rolled 
down among the weeds. Such a lonely and 
retired spot was an admirable place for a lovers' 
rendezvous, but it, nevertheless, showed a great 
want of foresight on the part of Jeanne de 
Maurescamp to select it that morning as the 
scene of her tender parting with the officer of 
the chasseurs. She was not ignorant of her 
husband’s morning excursion' to the keeper’s 
cottage ; she also knew what path he would take 
in returning, hence how could she have been so 
blinded by passion as to forget that he would 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


205 


probably pass through that walk at the very 
hour she had appointed for her meeting with 
Captain de Sontis ? 

In any case, they were both there, deeply 
absorbed in conversation and seated side by side 
on an old rustic bench embowered in verdure, 
and directly in front of the broken statue. 
The hour of departure being so near, the 
officer seemed more eager even than usual, 
Jeanne more wavering, and they were talking 
together in low tones, holding each other by the 
hand, with their faces almost touching, when 
Captain de Sontis detected in Madame de 
Maurescamp’s eyes a sudden flash that was evi- 
dently not intended for him. Turning hastily, 
he glanced in the same direction in which 
she was looking and saw, somewhat indistinctly 
through the trees at the end of the walk, the 
figure of a man who seemed undecided as to 
whether or not to advance, but who finally turned 
his back upon them, took another path, and dis- 


206 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


appeared in the shrubbery. Captain de Sontis 
thought he recognized Baron de Maurescamp. 

“Is not that your husband?” he said to Jeanne. 

“ Yes.” 

“ Do you think he saw us ? ” 

“I cannot say,” was the reply; “but, if he did 
see us, he is a coward.” 

Whether he had seen them or not, Baron de 
Maurescamp quietly returned to the chateau by 
the longer but more comfortable path through 
the new park; but he went out again almost 
immediately, and spent the remainder of the day 
in inspecting his plantations and directing his 
wood-cutters, returning barely in time for dinner. 

It was, perhaps, merely the result of fancy that 
Captain de Sontis, on descending to the drawing- 
room, thought he detected a slight constraint in 
the greeting of his host and a certain alteration 
in his features. Dinner was served. There were 
about twenty guests at the table, and they were 
slightly scandalized to see that Madame de Mau- 
rescamp had given the seat of honor at her right 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 207 

to the Captain of chasseujs, who was one of the 
youngest and most insignificant of her guests ; 
but he was to leave the next morning, and this 
circumstance might explain, to a certain extent, 
the extraordinary honor done him. 

Either this little breach of etiquette offended 
a number of the guests, or there was in the air 
that vague uneasiness which is the precursor 
of an approaching storm, for the beginning 
of the meal was. silent and constrained ; but the 
abundance and excellence of the wines which 
constituted a part of a most delicious repast soon 
dispelled the gloom, brightened the countenances 
that had been a trifle distrait at first, and sharp- 
ened the wits of the party; and the conversation 
became even more animated and brilliant than 
usual, as not unfrequently happens when it has 
been necessary to make a decided effort to over- 
come a slight coldness and embarrassment at first. 
In short, this dinner which had begun in rather a 
funereal fashion terminated as should a brilliant 
repast of huntsmen and men of the world, whose 


208 THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 

desire to be agreeable was greatly stimulated by 
the presence of several pretty women. Baron 
de Maurescamp, himself, who usually drank very 
sparingly, drained his glass that evening more fre- 
quently than was altogether prudent, and seemed 
to be relieved of the burden that had been 
weighing upon his mind for some time past. 
Perhaps, he was secretly rejoicing at the ap- 
proaching departure of an unwelcome guest. 
At all events, he had suddenly resumed his com- 
placent and authoritative manner, and he even 
went so far as to communicate some of his favor- 
ite principles and theories to his guests, in his 
former unctuous and triumphant tones. 

Madame de Maurescamp lavished upon Cap- 
tain de Sontis favors and attentions which evi- 
dently embarrassed him in spite of his assu- 
rance, while, at the same time, as if in imitation 
of her husband, she amused herself by drinking 
bumpers of Sauterne and Champagne which 
seemed to occasion paroxysms of almost hysteri- 
cal gayety. Between her fits of rather boister- 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


209 


ous hilarity, she relapsed into sullen reveries not 
unlike those of a weary Bacchante. 

At dessert, she declared that coffee should be 
served in the dining-room : they were all in such 
an exceedingly happy mood, and if they separated, 
some to go to the smoking-room, the others to 
the parlor, the charm would be broken, so they 
would remain together, and the gentlemen should 
be allowed to smoke. This announcement was 
greeted with great applause. 

Coffee was served ; then cigars were passed 
around. Jeanne declared that she intended to 
try to smoke, and she took a cigar from the tray. 

u You will make yourself ill,” exclaimed Baron 
de Maurescamp ; “ at least, make the attempt 
with a cigarette.” 

“ No, no ; I want a cigar ! ” replied his wife, 
whose eyes seemed rather unnatural in their 
expression. 

Baron de Maurescamp shrugged his shoulders, 
and said no more. 

13 


210 THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 

Jeanne struck a match, lighted her cigar and 
began to smoke resolutely amid the plaudits of 
the guests, but, at the end of two or three min- 
utes, she exclaimed : 

“ You were right. It does make me ill.” 

Then, turning suddenly to her neighbor on 
the right: 

“ Captain,” she said, taking the still humid 
cigar from her lips and offering it to him, 
“here, finish my cigar ! ” 

On seeing this action and hearing these few 
simple words, the twenty guests, so noisy and 
excited an instant before, seemed to have been 
suddenly changed to marble, and such a death-like 
silence filled the room that one could hear the 
murmur of the wintry wind without as distinctly 
as if the apartment had been empty. 

All the eyes, which had at first fixed themselves 
on Jeanne, turned towards her husband who was 
seated opposite her. Though extremely pale, he 
was quietly watching Captain de Sontis and 
waiting. 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


211 


The officer hesitated. He looked Jeanne 
searchingly in the eyes. 

“ Ah ! well ! ” she said, almost sneeringly. 
“What are you afraid of?” 

He hesitated no longer, but took the proffered 
cigar and placed it between his teeth. 

At the same instant, Baron de Maurescamp 
drew his own cigar from his mouth and dashed it 
violently in the officer’s face. 

“ Finish mine, also, Captain ! ” he cried. 

The half-consumed cigar struck Captain de Sontis 
full in the face, emitting a shower of sparks. 

Every one started up, and, in the midst of the 
general confusion and stupor, Jeanne suddenly 
rose to her feet and stood proudly erect, cold and 
unmoved, with one hand resting on the back of 
her chair, and upon her beautiful face, once so 
pure and noble, that expression of mingled horror 
and ferocious joy which one might have seen on 
the charming visage of Marie Stuart when she 
heard the explosion which avenged the murder 
of Rizzio. 


212 THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


CHAPTER XV. 

“LA belle dame sans merci.” 
MMEDIATELY after this scene, which seemed 



JL likely to be followed by tragical conse- 
quences, the majority of the guests discreetly 
disappeared. Those residing in the neighborhood 
ordered their carriages at once ; others took the 
evening train for Paris, and there remained at 
the chateau only the most intimate friends of the 
Baron and Baroness. 

Captain de Sontis was, naturally, the first to 
depart. He took up his quarters for the night at 
an inn in the nearest village, and, a duel being 
inevitable, two officers of his regiment, who had 
also been present at the dinner, entered into 
negotiations with Messieurs d’Hermany and de 
la Jardye, whom Baron de Maurescamp had again* 
requested to serve as his seconds. 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 218 

We will not weary the reader a second time 
with a detailed account of the conference that 
took place between these gentlemen. It was 
understood, from the very first, that there was to 
be no attempt at a reconciliation. As to the 
choice of weapons, it was very evident (after 
what had occurred in his contests with Captain 
de Sontis), that Baron de Maurescamp would 
prefer pistols; but, though the act of extreme 
ill-breeding which the Captain had committed, at 
the instigation of Madame de Maurescamp, had 
at first placed the husband in the position of the 
offended party, he had lost that advantage by 
allowing himself to become enraged to such an 
extent as to respond to this act by a deadly 
insult. Besides, Baron de Maurescamp’s pride, 
which was thoroughly aroused, made him accept 
the sword without controversy this time, what- 
ever his secret preference might have been. 

It was decided that the meeting should take 
place the following morning, at ten o’clock, in a 


214 THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 

clearing of the forest adjoining La Vénerie , for 
it was not thought seemly that the duel should 
be fought on Baron de Maurescamp’s property. 

There was not much sleeping done at the 
chateau that night. The guests held animated 
conversations in their private apartments ; items 
of news were carried from chamber to chamber ; 
the gentlemen discussed questions relating to 
points of honor, and the nervous and excited 
ladies talked in eager whispers, wiping away a 
few tears, and, in their secret hearts, enjoying 
the whole affair immensely. It is needless to say 
that the entire retinue of servants, from the 
cooks to the stable boys, was agitated by the same 
emotions ; that is to say they were all a prey to 
that delightful uneasiness and agreeable excite- 
ment which the peril of others generally inspires. 

It is quite probable that the master and mis- 
tress of the house slept no more than their 
guests. Baron de Maurescamp, realizing that 
the affair was of the gravest possible nature, 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


215 


busied himself in putting his business in order. 
Jeanne refused to see any one ; the guests had 
only been able to learn, through the report of 
her maid, that she had spent the entire night in 
pacing her room, raving and ranting like an 
actress . 

The gloomy dawn of a November day was 
scarcely an hour old when Baron de Maures- 
camp, whose apartments were on the first floor, 
stepped out-of-doors the following morning to 
smoke a cigar in the court-yard. He walked on 
until he reached the entrance gate, and there 
found himself face to face with a young peasant 
lad, thirteen or fourteen years of age, who paused 
abruptly on perceiving him, and in whom the 
Baron thought he recognized a stable boy em- 
ployed at the village inn. The lad’s manner was 
so confused and embarrassed that Baron de 
Maurescamp, in spite of the anxieties of the 
moment, was struck by it. 

“ What is your business ? Where are you 
going ?” inquired the Baron. 


216 THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 

“ To the chateau,” stammered the youth, blush- 
ing furiously, at the same time keeping one of 
his hands awkwardly hidden under his blouse. 

“What are you going to the chateau for?” 
insisted Baron de Maurescamp. 

“ To speak to Mile. Julie.” 

Julie was Madame de Maurescamp's maid. 

“ Who sent you, my boy ? ” 

“A gentleman,” murmured the lad, more and 
more timidly. 

“A gentleman who is stopping at the inn, eh?” 
• “Yes.” 

“An officer ? ” 

“Yes.” 

“What are you concealing under your blouse ? 
A letter ? Give it to me. Come, give it to me.” 

The lad, almost ready to cry, was finally in- 
duced, partly by persuasion and partly by force, 
to surrender a sealed envelope which he w r as 
crumpling in his clenched hand. 

The envelope bore no address; 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 217 

“ For whom is this letter intended, my boy ? " 

“For Madame/' replied the youth. 

“ Then you were told to give it to Mile. Julie, 
so she would deliver it to Madame ? ” 

The youth made a sign in the affirmative. 

“Ah! well, my boy/' said Baron de Maures- 
camp, “ I will execute your commission for you. 
Come with me to wait for an answer, if there 
should be one." 

The Baron, accompanied by the young peasant, . 
rapidly retraced his steps, and, leaving the lad in 
the hall, entered his own apartments. There, he 
hastily tore open the envelope containing the 
letter intended for his wife, and read these words, 
which were not signed, but in regard to the 
authorship of which there could be no possible 
doubt : 

“ Have no fears. For your sake I will spare 
him." 

Baron de Maurescamp’s first impulse was to 


218 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


tear this insolent note into fragments and cast 
them into the fire, but a sudden thought deterred 
him. He took a fresh envelope from his desk, 
slipped the note into it and sealed it. He had 
been suddenly seized with a strange curiosity ; he 
wished to know if his wife would reply to this 
message, and what she would reply. 

He went back to the young peasant he had 
left in the hall. 

“ My boy,” he said to him, returning the letter, 
“I was unable to find Mile. Julie. She must be 
in the kitchen. Go and ring at the little door 
opposite, and ask for her. Wait, here is a hun- 
dred sous piece for your trouble.” 

The lad thanked him and proceeded to the door 
indicated. Baron de Maurescamp again went 
down to the gate, left the court-yard and walked 
slowly along the road leading to the village. 

Singular was it not? — in an hour he was going 
to risk his life with every chance against him, 
and yet this thought, serious as it was, was at that 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


219 


moment forgotten, effaced from his mind by the 
single query : “ What will my wife say in reply ? ” 

The truth was that this man, in spite of his 
superb physique, had not maintained a very suc- 
cessful resistance to the anxieties that had been 
torturing him for several weeks. His nervous 
system, in fact, had almost given way under the 
astonishment and dread inspired by this enduring 
hatred, this wily, premeditated and implacable 
vengeance of which he felt he was soon to 
become the victim. Accustomed to treat women 
as children or playthings, he was amazed and 
even terrified to encounter in one of these frivo- * 
lous and despised creatures a clearness of discern- 
ment and a strength of will over which all his 
personal attributes and attractions — physical 
vigor, fortune, social position and marital 
authority — not only exerted no influence what- 
ever, but were regarded as nought. 

Perhaps, at that moment of profound distress, 
he would have paid dearly for a word of kindness, 


220 THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 

interest or even pity from the woman he had for- 
merly treated with such disdain. Perhaps, he 
hoped for this word in the response for which he 
was waiting. 

At the end of about ten minutes, the lad was 
seen leaving the chateau. Entirely reassured by 
the result of his first interview with Baron de 
Maurescamp, he did not even take the trouble 
this time to conceal the note of which he was the 
bearer. He passed him with a smile and a bow. 

“ Ah ! you have an answer! ” exclaimed Baron 
de Maurescamp, stopping him ; “ I know what 
it is about, and I shall, perhaps, have something 
to add to it.” At the same time he slipped 
another coin into the lad’s hand. 

He took the letter. The envelope was a fresh 
one and still damp. He was not even obliged to 
tear it in order to open it. He found in the 
envelope the Captain’s note, which Madame de 
Maurescamp had returned after writing her 
response upon it. 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


221 


Below this line in the Captain’s handwriting : 

“ Have no fears. For your sake I will spare 
him/’ 

Madame de Maurescamp had simply added : 

“Pray do not take the trouble.” 

Baron de Maurescamp, after reading it, replaced 
the note in the envelope and returned it to the 
boy, who hastened on. 


222 THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


CHAPTER XVL 


ANOTHER TRANSFORMATION. 

HE duel took place about an hour and a half 



JL afterwards, and Baron de Maurescamp was 
dangerously wounded in the breast. 

For some time it was thought that he could 
not survive, as his lungs had sustained serious 
injuries, but his powerful constitution finally saved 
him. Nevertheless, his health still remains in a 
precarious state, and it does not seem probable 
that his nervous system will ever recover from 
its present shattered condition. 

It seems to be the general impression with all 
such as are charitably inclined, that, in this affair 
with Captain de Sontis, his wife had really been 
guilty of nothing worse than drinking a little too 
much Sauterne, and smoking a cigar which had 
deprived her of such slight consciousness of her 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


223 


acts as remained ; consequently, he can continue 
to live with her on amicable terms, and he even 
accords her a kind of resigned and submissive 
deference, quite astonishing on the part of one 
who was formerly so arrogant and conceited. 

It is true that he has succeeded in effecting a 
complete transformation in his wife’s nature, and 
that he ought to be satisfied with his work, for 
Jeanne is no longer romantic, and she no longer 
reads Tennyson. Since the unnatural death of 
her companion in intellectual pursuits, ideality 
itself seems to have died within her. After 
having at first affected, merely from a spirit of 
ironical revenge, the habits and manners of a 
woman hungry for amusement, excitement and 
worldly pleasures, she has become fond of her 
rôle, and now plays it to the life. 

Cold, satirical, thoroughly worldly, boldly 
coquettish and indifferent to everything, since 
the death of her mother, the one elevated senti- 
ment she retains is that which takes her three 


224 


THE HISTORY OF A PARISIENNE. 


times a week to the bedside of an aged paralytic 
who has relapsed into utter childishness — the 
Countess de Lerne. 

We have nothing more to say concerning 
Jeanne Bérengère de Latour-Mesnil, Baroness 
de Maurescamp. We, together probably with 
the reader, ceased to feel any interest in her, 
when her heartless and atrocious reply to 
Captain de Sontis’ note proved that the angel 
had, unquestionably, become a fiend. 

The moral of this only too true story is that 
monsters are not born : God does not make any, 
but men make many ; and this is a fact which 
mothers ought never to forget. 


THE END. 


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Price 75 cents in paper cover, or $1.25 in cloth, black and gold. 

SEQUEL TO “NANA.” NANA’S DAUGHTER. 

Nana’s Daughter. A Continuation of and Sequel to Emile Zola’s Great 
Realistic Novel of “Nana.” Price 75 cents in paper, or $1.00 in cloth. 

HENRY GRÉVILLE’S PATHETIC NOVELS. 

Xenie’s Inheritance. A Tale of Russian Life. By Henry Gréville. 
Savéli’s Expiation. A Powerful Novel. By Henry Gréville. 

Dournof. A Russian Story. By Henry Gréville, author of “Dosia.” 
Lucie Rodey. A Charming Society Novel. By Henry Gréville. 
Bonne-Marie. A Tale of Normandy and Paris. By Henry Gréville. 

A Friend ; or, “ L’Ami.” By Henry Gréville, author of “ Dosia.” 

Sonia. A Love Story. By Henry Gréville, author of “Dosia.” 
Gabrielle; or, The House of Maurèze. By Henry Gréville. 

Above are in paper cover, price 50 cents each, or in cloth, at $1.00 each. 
Dosia. A Russian Story. By Henry Gréville , author of “ Markof.” 

The Trials of Raïssa. By Henry Gréville, author of “ Dosia.” 

The Princess Ogherof. A Love Story. By Henry Gréville. 

Philomène’s Marriages. A Love Story. By Henry Gréville. 

Pretty Little Countess Zina. By Henry Gréville, author of “Dosia.” 
Marrying Off a Daughter. A Love Story. By Henry Gréville. 

Above are in paper cover, price 75 cents each, or in cloth, at $1.25 each. 
Markof, the Russian Violinist. A Russian Story. By Henry Gréville. 
One large volume, 12mo., cloth, price $1.50, or paper cover, 75 cents. 


Above Books will be sent, postage paid, on receipt of Retail Price, 
by T. B. Peterson & Brothers, Philadelphia, Pa. (A) 


T. B. PETERSON and BROTHERS’ NEW BOOKS. 



PETERSONS’ SQUARE 12mo. SERIES. 

The following hooka are all printed on tinted paper , and are each issued in 
uniform style , in square 12mo. form. Price Fifty Cents each in Paper 
Cover, or $1.00 each in Morocco Cloth, Black and Gold. 

The History of a Parisienne. Octave Feuillet’s new and greatest work. 
Raney Cottem’s Courtship. By afithor of “ Major Jones’s Courtship.” 
Fanchon, the Cricket ; or, La Petite Fadette. By George Sand. 

Father Tom and the Pope; or, A Night at the Vatican. Illustrated. 

The Story of Elizabeth. By Miss Thackeray, daughter of W. M. Thackeray. 
A Woman’s Mistake; or, Jacques de Trévannes. A Charming Love Story. 
Bessie’s Six Lovers. A Charming Love Story. By Henry Peterson. 

Two Ways to Matrimony ; or, Is it Love? or, False Pride. 

The Matchmaker. By Beatrice Reynolds. A Charming Love Story. 

The Days of Madame Pompadour. By Gabrielle De St. Andre. 
Madeleine. A Charming Love Story. Jules Sandeau’s Prize Novel. 
Carmen. By Prosper Merimee. Book the Opera teas dramatized from. 
The Amours of Philippe; or, Philippe’s Love Affairs, by Octave Feuillet. 
Sybil Brotherton. A Novel. By Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth. 

The Red Hill Tragedy. By Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth. 

The American L’Assommoir. A parody on Zola’s “L’Assommoir.” 

Hyde Park Sketches. A very humorous and entertaining work. 

The Little Countess. By Octave Feuillet, author of “ Count De Camors.” 
Miss Margery’s Roses. A Charming Love Story. By Robert C. Meyers. 
Madame Pompadour’s Garter. A Romance of the Reign of Louis XV. 
That Girl of Mine. By the author of “ That Lover of Mine.” 

That Lover of Mine. By the author of “ That Girl of Mine.” 

Above are in paper cover, price 50 cents each, or $1.00 each in cloth. 

NEW BOOKS— MAJOR JONES’S COURTSHIP, ETC. 

The Exiles. The Russian ‘ Robinson Crusoe.’ Paper, 75 cents, cloth, $1.00. 
Mildred’s Cadet; or, Hearts and Bell-Buttons. Paper, 75 cents, cloth, $1.00. 
Major Jones’s Courtship. 21 Illustrations. Paper, 75 cents, cloth, $1.00. 
Major Jones’s Georgia Scenes. 12 Illustrations. Paper, 75 cents, cloth, $1.00. 
Major Jones’s Travels. 8 Illustrations. Paper, 75 cents, cloth, $1.00. 
Bellab. A Love Story. By Octave Feuillet. Paper, 75 cents, cloth, $1.00. 
Sabine’s Falsehood. A Love Storj r . Paper, 75 cents, cloth, $1.00. 
Vidocq! The French Detective. Illustrated. Paper, 75 cents, cloth, $1.00. 
Camille; or, The Fate of a Coquette. Paper, 75 cents, cloth, $1.25. 

My Hero. A Love Story. By Mrs. Forrester. Paper, 75 cts., cloth, $1.00. 
Linda; or, The Young Pilot of the Belle Creole. Paper, 75 cts., cloth, $1.25. 
Madame Bovary. By Gustave Flaubert. Paper, 75 cents, cloth, $1.00. 
The Count de Camors. By Octave Feuillet. Paper, 75 cents, cloth, $1.25. 
How She Won Him ! A Love Story. Paper cover, 75 cents, cloth, $1.25. 
Angèle’s Fortune. By André Thouriet. Paper cover, 75 cents, cloth, $1.25. 
St. Maur; or, An Earl’s Wooing. Paper cover, 75 cents, cloth, $1.25. 

The Woman in Black. Illustrated Cover. Paper, 75 cents, cloth, $1.00. 
The Earl of Mayfield. An Historical Novel. By Thomas P. May. The 
Eighth and Cheap Edition for the Million. Paper, 75 cents, cloth, $1.00. 


Above Books will be sent, postage paid, on receipt of Retail Price, 
by T. B. Peterson & Brothers, Philadelphia, Pa. (B) 


T. B. PETERSON and BROTHERS’ NEW BOOKS, 


ADOLPHE BELOT’S INGENIOUS NOVELS. 

The Black Venus. By Adolphe Belot. Paper cover, 75 cents, cloth, $1.00. 
La Grande Florino. By Adolphe Belot. Paper, 75 cents, cloth, $1.00. 
The Stranglers of Paris. By Adolphe Belot. Paper, 75 cents, cloth, $1.00. 

MES. EURNETT’S CHARMING STORIES. 

Kathleen. A Love Story. By Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett. 

Theo. A Love Story. By author of “ Kathleen," “Miss Crespigny,” etc. 
Pretty Polly Pemberton. By author of “ Kathleen,” “ Theo,” etc. 

A Quiet Life. By Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett, author of “Theo.” 
Miss Crespigny. A Charming Love Story. By author of “ Kathleen.” 

Above are in paper cover, price 50 cents each, or in cloth, at $1.00 each. 
Jarl’s Daughter and Other Tales. By Mrs. Burnett. Price 25 cents. 
Lindsay’s Luck. By Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett. Price 25 cents. 

NEW AND GOOD WORKS BY BEST AUTHORS. 

A Heart Twice Won; or, Second Love. A Love Story. By Mrs. Elita - 
beth Van Loon. Morocco cloth, black and gold. Price $1.50. 

The Mystery of Allanwold. A Thrilling Novel. By Mrs. Elizabeth Van 
Loon, author of “A Heart Twice Won.” Cloth, and gold. Price $1.50. 
Under the Willows; cr, The Three Countesses. By Mrs. Elizabeth Van 
Loon, author of “A Heart Twice Won.” Cloth, and gold. Price $1.50. 
The Shadow of Hampton Mead. A Charming Stoiy. By Mi». Elizabeth 
Van Loon, author of “A Heart Twice Won.” Cloth. Price $1.50. 
The Last Athenian. By Victor Rydberg. Translated from the Swedish. 

Large 12mo. volume, near 600 pages, cloth, black and gold, price $1.75. 
The Roman Traitor ; or, The Days of Cicero, Cato, and Cataline. A Tale 
of the Republic. By Henry William Herbert. Morocco cloth, price$l. 75. 
The Earl of Mayfield. By Thomas P. May, of Louisiana. One large 
duodecimo volume, bound in morocco cloth, black and gold, price $1.50. 
Myrtle Lawn. An American Romance in Real Lite. By Robert E. 

Bullard, of North Carolina. Morocco cloth, black and gold, price $1.50. 
Miss Leslie’s Cook Book, a complete Manual to Domestic Cookery in all 
its Branches. Paper cover, $1.00, or bound in morocco cloth, $1.50. 
Frank Forester’s Sporting Scenes and Characters. By Henry William 
Herbert. With Nineteen Illustrations. Two volumes, cloth, $4.00. 
Franca telli’s Modern Cook Book. With the most approved methods of 
French, English, German, and Italian Cookery. With Sixty-two Illus- 
trations. One volume, 600 pages, bound in morocco cloth, $5.00. 

The Waverley Novels. New National Edition. Five 8vo. vols., cloth, 15.00 
Charles Dickens’ Works. New National Edition. 7 volumes, cloth, 20.00 
Charles Dickens' Works. Illustrated 8 vo. Edition. 18 vols , cloth, 27.00 
Charles Dickens’ Works. New American Edition. 22 vols., cloth, 3k. 00 
Charles Dickens’ Works. Green Cloth V2nw. Edition. 22 vols., cloth, 44.00 
Charles Dickens’ Works. Illustrated 12 mo. Edition. 36 vols., cloth, 45.00 


JpZIS* Above Books will he sent, postage paid, on receipt of Retail Price, 
by T. B. Peterson & Brothers, Philadelphia, Pa. (C) 


T. B. PETERSON and BROTHERS’ PUBLICATIONS. 


Orders solicited from Booksellers, Librarians, Canvassers, News 
Agents, and all others in want of good and fast-selling 
books, which will be supplied at very Low Prices. 


MRS. E. D. E. N. SOUTHWORTH’S FAMOUS WORKS. 

Complete in forty-three large duodecimo volumes, bound in morocco cloth, gilt back, 
price $1.75 each; or $75.25 a set, each set is put up in a neat box. 

Ishmael ; or, In the Depths, being Self-Made; or, Out of Depths.... $1 75 
Self Raised ; or, From the Depths. Sequel to “ Ishmael.” 1 75 


The Deserted Wife, 1 75 

The Fortune Seeker,' 1 75 

The Bridal Eve, 1 75 

The Lost Heiress, 1 75 

The Two Sisters, 1 75 

Lady of the Isle, 1 75 

Prince of Darkness, 1 75 

The Three Beauties, 1 75 

Vivia; or the Secret of Power, 1 75 

Love’s Labor Won, 1 75 

The Gipsy’s Prophecy, 1 75 

Retribution 1 75 

The Christmas Guest, 1 75 

Haunted Homestead, 1 75 

Wife’s Victory, 1 75 

Allworth Abbey, 1 75 

India; Pearl of Pearl River,.. 1 75 

Curse of Clifton, 1 75 

Discarded Daughter 1 75 

The Mystery <sf Dark Hollow,.. 1 75 

Avenger 1 75 

The Phantom Wedding; or, The Fall of the House of Flint, 1 75 

Above are each in cloth, or each one is in paper cover, at $1.50 each. 
Self-Made; or, Out of the Depths. By Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southvvorth. 
Complete in two volumes, cloth, price $1.75 each, or $3.50 a set. 

MRS. CAROLINE LEE HENTZ’S WORKS. 

Complete in twelve large duodecimo volumes, bound in morocco cloth , gilt back, 
price $1.75 each; or $21.00 a set, each set is put up in a neat box. 

Love after Marriage, $1 75 

Eoline; or Magnolia Vale, 1 75 

The Lost Daughter 1 75 

The Banished Son, 1 75 

Helen and Arthur, 1 75 

75 
75 


The Mother-in-Law, $1 75 

The Fatal Secret, 1 75 

How He Won Her, 1 75 

Fair Play, 1 75 

The Spectre Lover, 1 75 

Victor’s Triumph 1 75 

A Beautiful Fiend, 1 75 

The Artist’s Love, I 75 

A Noble Lord, 1 75 

Lost Heir of Linlithgow, 1 75 

Tried for her Life, 1 75 

Cruel as the Grave, 1 75 

The Maiden Widow, 1 75 

The Family Doom, 1 75 

The Bride’s Fate, 1 75 

The Changed Brides, 1 75 

Fallen Pride, 1 75 

The Widow’s Son, 1 75 

The Bride of Llewellyn, 1 75 

The Fatal Marriage, 1 75 

The Missing Bride; or, Miriam, the 


Ernest Lin wood $1 75 

The Planter’s Northern Bride,.. 1 75 

Courtship and Marriage, 1 75 

Rena; or. the Snow Bird, 1 75 

Marcus Warland 1 75 

Linda; or, the Young Pilot of the Belle Creole,... 1 

Robert Graham ; the Sequel to “ Lind i ; or Pilot of Belle Creole,”... 1 
Above are each in cloth, or each one is in paper cover, at $1.50 each. 


Above Books will b8 sent, postage paid, on receipt of Retail Price, 
by T. B. Peterson & Brothers, Philadelphia, Pa, (1) 


2 T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS’ PUBLICATIONS. 


MRS. ANN S. STEPHENS’ WORKS. 


Complete in twenty-three large duodecimo volumes , bound in morocco cloth , gilt back, 
price $ 1.75 each ; or $40.25 a set, each set is put up in a neat box. 


Norston’s Rest 


75 

The Soldiers’ Orphans, 

..$1 

75 

Bertha’s Engagement, 

1 

75 

A Noble Woman, 

.. 1 

75 

Bellehood and Bondage,.... 

1 

75 

Silent Struggles, 

The Rejected Wife, 

. 1 

75 

The Old Countess, 

1 

75 

.. 1 

75 

Lord Hope’s Choice, 

1 

75 

The Wife’s Secret, 

.. 1 

75 

The Reigning Belle, 


75 

Mary Derwent, 

.. 1 

75 

Palaces and Prisons, 

1 

75 

Fashion and Famine, 

.. 1 

75 

Married in IListe, 


75 

The Curse of Gold, 

.. 1 

75 

Wives and Widows, 

Ruby Gray’s Strategy, 

1 

75 

Mabel’s Mistake, 


75 

1 

75 

The Old Homestead, 

1 

75 


Doubly False, 1 75 | The Heiress, 1 75 | The Gold Brick,... 1 75 

Above are each in cloth, or each one is in paper cover, at $1.50 each. 


MISS ELIZA A. DUPUY’S WORKS. 

Complete in fourteen large duodecimo volumes, bound in morocco cloth, gilt back, price 
$1.75 each ; or $24.50 a set, each set is put up in a neat box. 


A New Way to Win a Fortune $1 75 

The Discarded Wife, I 75 

The Clandestine Marriage, 1 75 

The Hidden Sin 1 75 

The Dethroned Heiress, 1 75 

The Gipsy’s Warning 1 75 

All For Love, 1 75 


Why Did He Marry Her? $1 75 

Who Shall be Victor ? 1 75 

The Mysterious Guest, 1 75 

Was He Guilty? 1 75 

The Cancelled Will, 1 75 

The Planter’s Daughter, 1 75 

Michael Rudolph, 1 75 


Above are each in cloth, or each one is in paper cover, at $1.50 each. 


LIST OF THE BEST COOK BOOKS PUBLISHED. 


Every housekeeper should possess at least one of the following Cook Books, as they 
would save the price of it in a week's cooking. 

Miss Leslie’s Cook Book, a Complete Manual to Domestic Cookery 


in all its Branches. Paper cover, $1.00, or bound in cloth, $1 50 

The Queen of the Kitchen; or, The Southern Cook Book. Con- 
taining 1007 Old Southern Family Receipts for Cooking,. ..Cloth, 1 75 

Mrs. Hale’s New Cook Book, Cloth, 1 75 

Petersons’ New Cook Book, Cloth, 1 75 

Widdifield’s New Cook Book, Cloth, 1 75 

Mrs. Goodfellow’s Cookery as it Should Be, Cloth, 1 75 

The National Cook Book. By a Practical Housewife, Cloth, 1 75 

The Young Wife’s Cook Book, Cloth, 1 75 

Miss Leslie’s New Receipts for Cooking, Cloth, .1 75 

Mrs. Hale’s Receipts for the Million, Cloth, 1 75 


The Family Save-All. By author of “National Cook Book,” Cloth, 1 75 
Fra ncatelli’s Modern Cook Book. With the most approved methods 
of French, English, German, and Italian Cookery. With Sixty- 
two Illustrations. One vol., C00 pages, bound in morocco cloth, 5 00 


J£T Above Books will be sent, postage paid, on receipt of Retail Price, 
by T. B. Peterson & Brothers, Philadelphia, Pa. 


T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS’ PUBLICATIONS. 3 


MRS. C. A. WARFIELD’S WORKS. 

Complete in vine large, duodecimo volumes, hound in morocco cloth , gilt back, price 
$1.75 each ; or $15.75 a set, each set is put up in a neat box. 

The Cardinal’s Daughter, $1 75 Miriam’s Memoirs, $1 75 

Feme Fleming, 1 75 Monfort Hall, 1 75 

The Household of Bouverie,.... 1 75 Sea and Shore, 1 75 

A Double Wedding, 1 75 Hester Howard’s Temptation,... 1 75 

Lady Ernestine; or, The Absent Lord of Rocheforte, 1 75 

FREDRIKA BREMER’S DOMESTIC NOVELS. 

Complete in six large duodecimo volumes, bound in cloth, gilt back, price $1.75 each ; 
or $10.50 a set, each set is put up in a neat box. 

Father and Daughter, $1 75 I The Neighbors, $1 75 

The Four Sisters, 1 75 I The Home, 1 75 

Above are each in cloth, or each one is in paper cover, at $1.50 each. 
Life in the Old World. In two volumes, cloth, price, 3 50 


ft. K. PHILANDER DOESTICKS’ WORKS. 

Complete in four large duodecimo volumes, bound in cloth, gilt back, price $1.75 
each ; or $7.00 a set, each set is put up in a neat box. 

Doesticks’ Letters, $1 75 I The Elephant Club, $1 75 

Plu-Ri-Bus-Tah, 1 75 | Witches of New York, 1 75 

Above are each in cloth, or each one is in paper cover, at $1.50 each. 


JAMES A. MAITLAND’S WORKS. 

Complete in seven large duodecimo volumes, bound in cloth, gilt back, price $1.75 
each ; or $12.25 a set, each set is put up in a neat box. 


The Watchman, $1 75 

The Wanderer,.., I 75 

The Lawyer’s Story, 1 75 


Diary of an Old Doctor, $1 75 

Sartaroe, 1 75 

The Three Cousins 1 75 


The Old Patroon : or the Great Van Broek Property, 1 75 

Above are each in cloth, or each one is in paper cover, at $1.50 each. 


T. ADOLPHUS TROLLOPE’S NOVELS. 

Complete in seven large duodecimo volumes, bound in cloth, gilt back, price $1.75 
each ; or $12.25 a set, each set is put up in a neat box. 

The Sealed Packet, $1 75 ; Dream Numbers, $1 75 

Garstang Grange, 1 75 I Beppo, the Conscript, 1 75 

Leonora Casaloni,... 1 75 | Gemma 1 75 | Marietta, 1 75 

Above are each in cloth, or each one is in paper cover, at $1.50 each. 

FRANK FORESTER’S SPORTING SCENES. 

Frank Forester’s Sporting Scenes and Characters. By Henry William 
Herbert. A New, Revised, and Enlarged Edition, with a Life of the 
Author, a New Introductory Chapter, Frank Forester's Portrait and 
Autograph, with a full length picture of hiiu in his shooting costume, 
and seventeen other illustrations, from original designs by Darley and 
Frank Forester. Two vols., morocco cloth, bevelled boards, $4.00. 


(ÊiT Above Books will be sent, postage paid, on receipt of Retail Price, 
by T. B. Peterson & Brothers, Philadelphia, Pa. 


4 T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS’ PUBLICATIONS 


WILKIE COLLINS’ BEST WORKS. 

Basil; or, The Crossed Path..$l 50 | The Dead Secret. 12rno $1 50 

Above are each in one large duodecimo voiurne, bound in cloth. 

The Dead Secret, 8vo 75 i The Queen’s Revenge, 75 

Basil; or, the Crossed Path, 75 j Miss or Mrs? 50 

Hide and Seek, 75 Mad Monkton, 50 

After Dark, 75 Sights a-Foot, 50 

The Stolen Mask, 25 | The Yellow Mask,... 25 | Sister Rose,,.. 25 

The above books are each issued in paper cover, in octavo form. 


EMERSON BENNETT’S INDIAN STORIES. 

Complete in seven larg- duodecimo volumes, bound in cloth, gilt back, price $1.75 
each ; or $12.25 a set , each set is put up in a neat box. 

The Border Rover, $1 75 Bride of the Wilderness, $1 75 


Clara Moreland,. 

The Orphan’s Trials,.. 


Ellen Norbury, I 75 

Kate Clarendon, 1 75 


Viola: or Adventures in the Far South-West, 1 75 

Above are each in cloth, or each one is in paper cover, at $1.50 each. 

The Heiress of Bellefonte, 75 | The Pioneer’s Daughter, 75 


GREEN’S WORKS ON GAMBLING. 


Complete in four large duodecimo volumes, bound in cloth, gilt back, price $1.75 
each; or $7.00 a set, each set is put up in a neat box. 

Gambling Exposed, $1 75 i The Reformed Gambler, $1 75 

The Gambler’s Life, 1 75 | Secret Band of Brothers, 1 75 

Above are each in cloth, or each one is in paper cover, at $1.50 each. 


DOW’S PATENT SERMONS. 

Complete in four large duodecimo volumes, bound in cloth, gilt back, price $1.50 
each ; or $6.00 a set, each set is pul up in a neat box. 


Dow’s Patent 
Series, cloth,. 
Dow’s Patent 
Series, cloth, 


Sermons, 1st 

'll 

Sermons, 2d 


.$1 50 
1 50 


S Dow’s Patent Sermons, 3d 

Series, cloth, $1 50 

Dow’s Patent Sermons, 4th 
Series, cloth, 1 50 


Above are each in cloth, or each one is in paper cover, at $1.00 each. 


GEORGE SAND’S GREATEST WORKS. 

Consuelo, 12mo., cloth, $1 50 l Jealousy, 12mo., cloth, $1 50 

Countess of Rudolstadt, 1 50 | Indiana, 12mo., cloth, 1 50 

Above are each published in 12mo., cloth, gilt side and back. 
Fanchon, the Cricket, paper cover, 50 cents, or fine edition, in cloth, 1 50 
First and True Love. With 11 Illustrations. Paper, 75 cents ; cloth, 1 00 

Consuelo. Paper cover, 75 I The Corsair 50 

Simon. A Love Story, •.. 50 I The Last Aldini, 50 

The Countess of Rudolstadt. The Sequel to Consuelo. Paper cover, 75 


MISS BRADDON’S WORKS. 

Aurora Floyd, 75 I The Lawyer’s Secret, 25 

Aurora Floyd, cloth 1 00 | For Better, For Worse, 75 


$ 3 ?* Above Books will be sent, postage paid, on Receipt of Retail Price, 
by T. B. Fetorson & Brothers, Philadelphia, Pa. 


MAJOR JONES’S COURTSHIP 

AND MAJOR JONES’S OTHER BOOKS, JUST PUBLISHED BY 

T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS, PHILADELPHIA 

And for sale in Paper Cover, and in Morocco Cloth, Gilt. 


Major Jones’s Courtship. 

MAJOR JONES’S COURTSHIP. Detailed, with Humorous Scenes, Inci- 
dents, and Adventures. By Major Joseph Jones, author of “ Raney Cot- 
tem’s Courtship,” “Major Jones’s Travels,” “Major Jones’s Georgia 
Scenes,” etc. Revised and Enlarged. With Twenty-One Full Page Illus- 
trations on Tinted Plate Paper, by Darley and Cary. One volume, 12mo. 
Price 75 cents in paper cover ; or in morocco cloth, gilt, $1.00. 

Major Jones’s Travels. 

MAJOR JONES’S TRAVELS. Detailing his Adventures, Humorous 
Scenes, and Incidents, in each town he passed through, while on his tour 
from Georgia to Canada. By Major Joseph Jones, author of “Major 
Jones’s Courtship.” With Eight Full Page Illustrations on Tinted Paper, 
by Darley. One volume, 12mo., uniform with “Major Jones’s Courtship.” 
Price 75 cents in paper cover; or in morocco cloth, gilt, $1.00. 

MAJOR JONES’S COURTSHIP and MAJOR JONES’S TRAVELS. These two 
books are also issued in one volume, bound in morocco cloth, price $1.75. 

Major Jones’s Georgia Scenes. 

MAJOR JONES’S GEORGIA SCENES. Comprising his celebrated Sketches 
of Georgia Scenes, with their Incidents and Characters. By Major Joseph 
Jones, author of “Major Jones’s Courtship.” With Twelve Full Page 
Illustrations on Tinted Paper, by Darley. Uniform with “ Major Jones’s 
Courtship.” Price 75 cents in paper cover ; or in morocco cloth, gilt, $1.00. 

Raney Cottem’s Courtship. 

RANCY COTTEM’S COURTSHIP. Detailed, with Other Humorous 

Sketches and Adventures. By Major Joseph Jones, author of “Major 
Jones’s Courtship.” With Eight Full Page Illustrations on Tinted Plate 
Paper, by Cary. One volume, 12mo., uniform with “ Major Jones’s Court- 
hip. ” Price 50 cents in paper cover ; or in morocco cloth, gilt, $1.00. 


Above Books by Major Jones , are for sale by all Booksellers and New* 
A neats y or copies of any one or all of them ^ will be sent to any one y to any place , 
at once, post-paid, on remitting the price of the ones wanted , to the publisherSy 

T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS, Philadelphia, Pa. 

WANTED.— Carasers to engage in selling the alum wh 


EACH IS IN ONE LARGE DUODECIMO VOLUME, MOROCCO CLOTH, GILT BACK, PRICE $1.75 EACH. 
All or any will be seut free of postage, everywhere, to all, on receipt of remittances. 

ISHMAEL; or, IN THE DEPTHS. (Being “Self-Made; or, Out of Depths.* 
SELF-RAISED; or, From the Depths. The Sequel to “Ishmael.” 

1 HE PHAN 1 GIVI WEDDING ; or, the Fall of the House of Flint. 

THE “MOTHER-IN-LAW;” or, MARRIED IN HASTE. 

THE MISSING BRIDE; or, MIRIAM, THE AVENGER. 

VICTOR’S TRIUMPH. The Sequei to “A Beautiful Fiend.” 

A BEAUTIFUL F5END; or, THROUGH THE FIRE. 

THE LADY OF THE ISLE; or, THE ISLAND PRINCESS. 

FAIR PLAY; or, BRITOMARTE, THE MAN-HATER. 

HOW HE WON HER. The Sequel to “Fair Play.” 

THE CHANGED BRIDES ; or, Winning Her Way, 

THE BRIDE’S FATE. The Sequel to “The Changed Brides.” 
CRUEL AS THE GRAVE; or, Hallow Eve Mystery. 

TRIED FOR HER LIFE. The Sequel to “ Cruel as the Grave.” 

THE CHRISTMAS GUEST ; or, The Crime and the Curse. 

THE LOST HEIR OF LINLITHGOW; or, The Brothers. 

A NOBLE LORD. The Sequel to “The Lost Heir of Linlithgow.” 
THE FAMILY DOOM; or, THE SIN OF A COUNTESS. 

THE MAIDEN WIDOW. The Sequel to “The Family Doom.” 

THE GIPSY’S PROPHECY; or, The Bride of an Evening. 

THE FORTUNE SEEKER; or, Astrea, The Bridal Day. 

THE THREE BEAUTIES; or, SHANNONDALE. 

FALLEN PRIDE; or, THE MOUNTAIN GIRL’S LOVE. 

THE DISCARDED DAUGHTER; or, The Children of the Isle. 

THE PRINCE OF DARKNESS; or, HICKORY HALL. 

THE TWO SISTERS; or, Virginia and Magdalene. 

THE FATAL MARRIAGE; or, ORVILLE DEVILLE. 

INDIA; or, THE PEARL OF PEARL RIVER. THE CURSE Of CLIFTON 
THE WIDOW’S SON; or, LEFT ALONE. 

THE MYSTERY OF DARK HOLLOW. 

ALLWORTH ABBEY; or, EUDORA, 

THE BRIDAL EVE; or, ROSE ELMER. 

VIVIA ; or, THE SECRET OF POWER. 

THE HAUNTED HOMESTEAD. 

BRIDE OF LLEWELLYN. THE DESERTED WIFE. RETRIBUTION 
0g* Mrs. Southioorth’ s works will be found for sale by all Booksellers. 

0s* Copies of any one, or more of Mrs. Sonthwortli’s works, will be sent to an ] j 
piuct. at once, per mail, post-paid, on remitting price of ones wanted to the Publishers, 

V. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS, Philadelphia, Fa. 


THE WIFE’S VICTORY 
THE SPECTRE LOVER. 

THE ARTIST’S LOVE. 
THE FATAL SECRET. 

LOVE’S LABOR WON. 
THE LOST HEIRESS. 


PETERSONS’ DOLLAR SERIES. 

j Vrice One Dollar Each 9 in Cloth , lUach and Gold . 


A WOMAN’S THOUGHTS ABOUT WOMEN. By Miss Mulock. Every Lady wants tt 
TWO WAYS TO MATRIMONY; or. Is It Love, 'or. False Pride? 

THE STORY OF “ ELIZABETH.” By Miss Thackeray, daughter of W. M. Thackeray. 
FLIRTATIONS IN FASHIONABLE LIFE. By Catharine Sinclair. 

THE MATCHMAKER. A Society Novel. By Beatrice Reynolds. Full of freshness and truth. 
ROSE DOUGLAS, The Lonnie Scotch Lass. A Companion to “Family Pride.” 

THE EARL’S SECRET. A Charming and Sentimental Love Story. By Miss Pardoe. 
FAMILY SECRETS. A Companion to “Family Pride,” and a very fascinating work. 

THE MACDERMOTS OF BALLYCLORAN. An Exciting Novel by Anthony Trollope. 
THE FAMILY SAVE-ALL With Economical Receipts for Breakfast, Dinner and Tea. 
SELF-SACRIFICE. A Charming and Exciting Work. By author of “ Margaret Maitland.” 
THE PRIDE OF LIFE. A Love Story. By Lady Jane Scott. 

THE RIVAL BELLES ; or, Life in Washington. By author “Wild Western Scenes.” 
THE CLYFFARDS OF CLYFFE. By James Payn, author of “ Lost Sir Massingberd.” 
THE ORPHAN’S TRIALS: or. Alone in a Great City. By Emerson Bennett. 
THE HEIRESS OF SWEETWATER. A Love Story, abounding with exciting scenes. 
THE REFUGEE. A delightful bok, full of food for laughter, and sterling information. 

LOST SIR MASSINGBERD. A Love Story. By author of “The Çlyffards of Clyffe.” 
CORA BELMONT; or, THE SINCERE LOVER. A True Story of the Heart. 
THE LOVER’S TRIALS; or. The Days Before the Revolution. By Mrs. Denison. 
MY SON’S WIFE. A strong, bright, interest ing and charming Novel. By autRor of “ Caste.” 
AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP BAG. By Mrs. Caroline Lee Hentz, author of “Linda,” “Rena.” 
SARATOGA! AND THE FAMOUS SPRINGS. An Indian Talc of Frontier Life. 
COUNTRY QUARTERS. A Charming Love Story. By the Countess of Blessington. 
SELF-LOVE. A Book for Young Ladies, with their prospects in Single and Married Life contrasted. 
THE DEVOTED BRIDE ; or, FAITH AND FIDELITY. A Love Story. 

THE HEIRESS IN THE FAMILY. By author of “ Marrying for Money.” 

THE LIFE OF EDWIN FORREST. By Colley Cibber. With Reminiscences. 

THE MAN OF THE YVORLD. This is full of style, elegance of diction, and force of thought. 
OUT OF THE DEPTHS. A Woman’s Story and a Woman's Book, the Story of a Woman’s Life. 
THE QUEEN’S FAVORITE; or, The Price of a Crown. A Romance of Don Juan. 
SIX NIGHTS WITH THE WASHINGTONIANS. By T. S. Arthur. Illustrated. 
THE RECTOR’S WIFE; or, THE VALLEY OF A HUNDRED FIRES. 
THE COQUETTE; or, LIFE AND LETTERS OF ELIZA WHARTON. 
WOMAN’S WRONG. A Book for Women. By Mrs. Eiloart. A Novel of great power. 
HAREM LIFE IN EGYPT AND CONSTANTINOPLE. By Emmeline Lott. 
THE OLD PATROON ; or, THE GREAT VAN BROEK PROPERTY. 
NANA. By Emile Zola. GAMBLING EXPOSED. By . I. H. Green. 

L’ASSOMMOIR. By Emile Zola. WOODBURN GRANGE. By W. Howitt. 

DREAM NUMBERS. By T. A. Trollope. THE CAVALIER. By G. P. R. James. 
LOVE AND DUTY. By Mrs. Ilubback. ONE FOB ANOTHER. By II. Morford. 
A LONELY LIFE. SHOULDER-STRAPS. By H. Morford. 

THE BEAUTIFUL WIDOW. TREASON AT HOME. PANOLA! 

&ÏP The Above Books are all issued in “Pearsons' Dollar Series ,” avd they ivill be found for sale 
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or m re, will be sent to any place, at once, post-paid , mi remitting the price of (he ones wanted in a letter , to 

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Each Work is complete p.nd unabridged, in one large volume. 

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Mysteries of the Court of London ; being THE MYSTERIES OF THE COURT Of 

CEOROE THE THIRD, with the Life and Times of the PRINCE OF WALES, afterward G EURO f 
Ï i IE FOURTH. Complete in one large volume, bound in cloth, price $1.73 ; or in paper cover, price $1.00. 

Rose Coster; or, the “ Second Series of the Mysteries of the Court of London.” Complete in on# 
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Vessel!» ïi’clawney ; being the *• Fourth Series or final conclusion of the Mysteries of the Con. 

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Lord Saxoiulale ; or, The Courtof Queen Victoria. Complete in one large volume, bound in 
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Cousit L'bristoval. The “Sequel to Lord Saxondale.” Complete in one large volume, bound 
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Rosa Lambert; or, The Memoirs of an Unfortunate Woman. Complete in one large volume, 
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Kenneth. A Romance of the Highlands. One vol.. cloth, price $1.75; or in paper cover, $1.( 0. 
Wallace: the Hero of Scotland. Illustrated with «38 plates. Paper, $1.(0; cloth, $1 .75 
The Gipsy Chief. Beautifully Illustrated. Price $1.00 in paper cover, or $1.75 in cloth. 
Robert Bruce; the Hero King of Scotland. Illustrated. Paper, $1.00; cloth. $1.75 
The Opera Bancor; or, The Mysteries of London Life. Price 75 cents. 

IsabeHa Vincent; or, The Two Orphans. One large octavo volume. Price 75 cents. 
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The Countess of Lascelles. The Continuation to “ Yivian Bertram.” Price 75 cents. 
9>ulie of Marchmon t. Being the Conclusion of “ The C confess ot Lascelh s.” Price 75 cent# 
The Child of Waterloo; or. The Horrors of the Battle Field. Price 75 cents. 

Pickwick Abroad. A Companion to the “ Pickwick Papers,” by “ Boz.” Price 75 cents. 
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Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots. Complete ir, one large octavo volume. Piice 76 cents. 
The Soldier’s Wife. Illustrated. One large octavo volume. Price 75 cents. 

May Middleton ; or. The History of a Fortune. In one large octavo volume. Price 75 cent# 
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Ellen Bercy ; or. The Memoirs of an Actress. One huge octavo volume. Price 75 cents. 

The Discarded Queen. One large octavo volume. Price 75 cen s. 

Agnes Evelyn ; or, Beauty and Pleasure. One large octavo v hune. Price 75 cents. 

Tins Massacre ©f Glencoe. One large octavo volume. Price 75 cents. 

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Edgar Mon vrose. One large octavo volume. Price 50 cents. . 

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Twenty Years After. A Sequel to the “Three Guardsmen.” In one large octavo volume 
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Bragelonne ; the Sou of Athos. Being the continuation of “ Twenty Years After.” Ia 
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The Iron Mash. Being the continuation of the “Three Guardsmen,” “Twenty Years After,” 
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Louise La Valïiere; or, the Second Series of the “Iron Mash,” and end of “The Three 
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The Memoirs of a Physician ; or, The Secret History of the Court of Louis the Fifteenth. 
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The Queen’s Necklace ; or, The “Second Series of the Memoirs of a Physician.” In one 
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Six Years Skater; or, Taking of the Bastile. Being the “Third Series of the Memoirs of & 
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Countess of t'harny ; or, The Fall of the French Monarchy. Being the “Fourth Series of 
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Andree de Taverr.ey, Being the “ Fifth Series of the Memoirs of a Physician.” In one 
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The Chevalier; or, the “Sixth Series and final conclusion of the Memoirs of a Physician 
Series.” In one large octavo volume. Price $1.00 in paper cover ; or $1.75 in cloth. 

Joseph Bahn»u>. Dumas’ greatest work, from which the play of “Joseph Balsamo” wac 
dramatized, by his sou, Alexander Dumas, Jr. Price $1.00 In paper cover, or $1.50 in cloth. 

The'Conscri|>t; or. The Days of the First Napoleon. An Historical Novel. In 
one large duodecimo volume. Price $1.50 in paper corer; or in cloth, for $1.75. 

Camille; or. The Fate of a Coquette. (“ La Dame aux Camélias.”) This is the only 
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and the Opera of “La Traviata” was adapted to the Stage. Paper cover, price $1.50; or in cloth, $1.75. 

Love ami liberty; or, A Man of the People. (Ibme Besson.) A Thrilling Story 
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The Adventures oî a Marquis. Paper cover, $1 .00 ; or in one volume, cloth, for $1.75. 

The Forty-Five Guardsmen. Paper cover, $1.00; or in one volume, cloth, fi r $1.75. 

Diana of Meridor. Paper cover, $1.00; or in one volume, cloth, for $1.7 5. 

The Iron Hand. Price $1.00 in paper cover, or in cne volume, cloth, for $1.75. 

Isabel of Bavaria, Queera oî France. In one large octavo volume. Prie*"- 75 cents. 

Annette; or. The JLady of the Pearls. A Companion to “Camille.” Frj >,e 75 cents 

The Fallen Angel. A Story of Love and Life in Paris. One large volume. Price 75 cent». 

The Mohicans of Paris. In one large octavo volume. Price 75 cents. 

The Horrors of Paris. In one large octavo volume. Price 75 cent3. 

The Man with Five Wives. In one large octavo volume. Price 75 cents. 

Sketches in France. In ono large octavo volume. Price 75 cents. 

Felina lie ('hambure; or. The Female Fiend. Price 75 cents. 

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Madame de Ciianihlay. In one large octavo volume. Price 50 cents. 

The Black. Tulip. Ill one large octavo volume. Price 50 cents. 

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George; or. The Planter of the Isle of France. Price 50 cents. 

The Count of Morel. In one large octavo volume. Pnce 50 cents. 

The Marriage Verdict. In one large octavo volume. Price 50 cents. 

Buried Alive. In one large octavo volume. Price 25 cents. 

js-zt* Above books are for sale by all Booksellers and News Agents , or copies Oj an# 
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EMILE ZOLA’S NEW BOOKS 


The Greatest Novels Ever Printed. 


Read what “Mrs. Lucy If. Hooper” says of “Emile Zola’s Works,” in 
the “Philadelphia Evening- Telegraph.” 

The immense success of Zola forms a curious feature in the literary history of this age. For he is 
not only honored by the critics, who recognize his strength, his pitiless audacity, his positive genius, 
but he is the idol of all classes on account of the truthfulness of his delineations. Now I do not join 
with the world at large in considering Zola immoral. He is no more immoral than a physician lec- 
turing about certain phases of horror in the condition of a patient afflicted with mortal disease. 
Nobody will arise from the perusal of Zola’s books possessed with a desire to imitate the actions or to 
follow the example of his heroes and heroines. His works are not demoralizing. He never makes 
vice lovely, never paints it in alluring tints, never strews its pathway with flowers. He is simply, lit- 
erally, and pitilessly true to life in his powerful delineations. He is a French Thackeray. The talent 
of the two men — the author of Vanity Fair and the author of the Assommoir — is almost identical, 
modified in each by the conditions of their nationality and of the society for which they wrote. Place 
Thackeray in Paris, the son of Parisian parents, and Vanity Fair will become exasperated into La 
Curie. Transfer Zola to London, and transform him into an Englishman, and he will write The Story 
of Pendennis instead of The History of the Rougon-Macquarts. Nor are Zola’s books the epheme- 
ral productions of an hour. They are immortal because they are true. Two hundred years from now, 
historians seeking to tell the tale of the France of the Second Empire and the Third Republic, will 
turn to Zola as to a gallery of photographs taken from the life. Zola is in literature what Holbein was 
in art. His immense hold over the sympathies of the lower orders was never more fully shown than 
since the production of the melodrama drawn from his novel of Natta, at the Ambigu. I went on 
Saturday night last, and the throng was extraordinary. And here let it be stated, once for all, that 
Nana is not an indecent play. It is superbly put upon the stage, is admirably played, and is a very 
curious and accurate study of an important phase of Parisian life. “Nana” is simply a realistic 
“Camille.”' She is a frivolous, good-hearted, conscienceless creature, and as for remorse, or aspirations 
after a purer or nobler life, 'such ideas never cross her brain. She holds in her vacant soul one nobler 
instinct, and that is her love for her child. In this respect Zola has been true to life as in other details. 

LIST OF EMILE ZOLA’S GREAT WORKS. 

Nana! The Sequel to “L’Assommoir.” Nana ! By Emile Zola. With a Picture of 
'‘Nana” on the cover. Price 75 cents in paper cover, or One Dollar in Cloth, Black and Gold. 

Nana's Mother; or. E’ Assommoir. By Emile Zola, author of “Nana.” With a 
Picture of “ Gervaise ,” Nana’s ntother, on the cover. Price 75 cents in paper, or One Dollar in Cloth. 

Thérèse Raquin. By Emile Zola, author of “Nana.” With a Portrait of “ Emile Zola” 
on the cover. Price 75 cents in paper cover, or One Dollar in Cloth, Black and Gold. 

Ea Curée. By Emile Zola , author of “Nana.” Price 75 cents in paper cover, or One Dollar 
in Cloth, Black and Gold. 

Magdalen Ferat. By Emile Zola, author of “Nana.” With a Picture of “Magdalen 
Ferat” on the cover. Price 75 cents in paper cover, or $1.25 in Cloth, Black and Gold. 

Clorinda; or, Zola’s Court of Napoleon III. By Emile Zola, author of “Nana.” 
With a Picture of “ Clorinda ” on the cover. Price 75 cents in paper cover, or $1.25 in Cloth. 

Alhine; or. The Abbe's Temptation. (Ea Faute de E’Abbe Mouret.) By 

Emile Zola. With a Picture of “ Alhine ” on the cover. Price 75 cents in paper, or $1.25 in Cloth. 

Hélène: a Love Episode; or. Une Page D' Amour. By Emile Zola, author of 
“Nana.” With a Picture of “ Hélène” on the cover. Price 75 cents in paper cover, or $1.25 in Cloth. 

The Rougon-Macquart Family; or. Miette. (Ea Fortune des Rougon.) 

By Emile Zola, author of “Nana.” Price 75 cents in paper cover, or $1.25 in Cloth. 

The Conquest of Plassans; or, Ea Conquête de Plassans. By Emile Zola, » 
author of “Nana.” Price 75 cents in paper cover, or $1.25 in Cloth, Black and Gold. 

The Markets of Paris; or, Ee Ventre de Paris. By Emile Zola, author of 
“Nana.” Price 75 cents in paper cover, or $1.25 in Cloth, Black and Gold. 

tSf * Above Books are for sale by all Booksellers and News Agents everywhere, and on all Rail- 
Road Trains, or copies of any one book, or all of them, will be sent to any one, to any place, at once, 
per mail, post-paid, on remitting the price of the ones wanted in a letter to the Publishers, 

T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS, Philadelphia, Pa. 


NANA’S DAUGHTER. 

A CONTINUATION OF AND 

SEQUEL TO ÉMÏLE ZOLA’S NOVEL OF “ NANA.” 

TRANSLATED FROM ADVANCE FRENCH SHEETS 

ZB1T JOHInT STIBLI I>TGh 


“X ANA’S DA TIGHTER” HAS AN ILLUSTRATED COVER, WITH 
A PORTRAIT OF THE HEROINE AND OF ALL THE 
PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS IN THE WORK ON IT. 


‘•Nana’s Daughter” is a sequel to Émile Zola’s world-famous “Nana.” It 
will be found even more interesting than that great work — first, because it has a plot 
of rare excellence which is unfolded with the utmost skill; second, because the inci- 
dents are intensely dramatic and exciting; and third, because everything about it is 
original and utterly out of the common track of fiction. Nana is again brought upon 
the stage, but in a manner that is not in the least repugnant to good taste. The authors 
have refined her, and surrounded her with every species of Parisian elegance afid lux- 
ury. Her wealth is numbered by millions, and in certain circles she is a power. Of 
course, she remains a schemer and profits by the weaknesses of her admirers, but she 
is shorn of many characteristics which in Zola’s book rendered her so repulsive. Her 
daughter, Andrée, is in every respect her opposite, and a sweeter or more attractive 
creature than she has never figured in a novel. Deserted in her infancy by her unfeel- 
ing mother and thrown upon the mercies of public charity, Andrée is adopted by an 
upright mechanic and his wife, and is brought up in the most exemplary fashion. In 
the course of the tale she is environed with many temptations, but her good sense and 
education enable her to withstand them all and to shine the brighter in consequence 
of them. Nana discovers her whereabouts and endeavors to get possession of her, her 
efforts bringing about a series of scenes unparalleled in modern fiction, and so absorb- 
ing that they absolutely enchain attention. The authors’ aim is to show that evil 
instincts are not hereditary, the reverse of what is maintained by Zola, and that they 
succeed in forcibly stating, if not in proving, their case all will admit on reading 
“Nana’s Daughter.” The other characters are drawn in masterly fashion, Pierre 
Naviel, d’Albigny, Luke, Lucien Despretz, Margot and Madame Adèle Despretz, as 
well as the Rajah, being personages especially instinct with life and naturalness. The 
courtship of Andrée and Lucien, with all the shadows that fall upon it, is a delicious 
love-idyl that everybody will admire, so tender, felicitous and touching is it, and so 
artistically heightened by the Rajah’s hopeless passion. “Nana’s Daughter” is 
superbly written. It is, indeed, a phenomenal work, and that it will create a sensation 
equal to that produced by “ Nana” is certain. The translation, from the French, by 
John Stirling cannot be too highly commended. It is vigorous, faithtul and excellent. 


Paper Cover, 75 Cents. Morocco Cloth, Gilt and Black, $1,00. 

“Nana's Daughter ” is for sale by all Booksellers and News Agents, or copies of 
it will be sent to any one , at once , post-paid , on remitting price to the publishers , 

T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS, Philadelphia, Pa. 


" It will save many dollars .” — Lynn Mass. Reporter. 

CHEAP EST AND BESTl^Ssfr 

PETERSOrslAGAZINE I 


A Supplement will be given in every number for 1SS1, containing a full-size pattern for a 
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“Peterson’s Magazine” contains, every year, 1000 pages, 14 steel plates, 12 colored Berlin 
patterns, 12 mammoth colored fashion piates, 24 pages of music, and about 900 wood cuts. Its princi- 
pal embellishments are 

Vag**vi*g*f 

Its immense circulation enables its proprietor to spend more on embellishments, stories, &c., 
than any other. It gives more for the money, and combines more merits, than any in the world. In 
1881, a New Feature will be introduced in the shape of a series of 

SPLENDIDLY ILLUSTRATED ARTICLES. 

ITS TALES AND NOVELLETS 

Are the best published anywhere. A lithe most popular writers are employed to write originally for 
"Frierson." In 1881 FIVE ORIGINAL COPYRIGHT NOVELETS will bo given, by Ann S. Stephens, 
by Frank Lee Benedict, by Jane G. Austin, by the author of “ Josiah Allen’s Wife,” and by Sidney 
Trevor. 



mimm 


PMtlS 


Ahead of all others. These plates are engraved on steel, twice the usual size, and are unequalled 
for beauty. They will be superbly colored Also, household and other receipts; and articles on 
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gilt, to the person getting up the club. 

With an extra copy of the Magazine for 1881, as a premium, to the 
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With both nn extra copy of the Magazine for 1881, and the premium 
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FQE LAEGEE CLUBS STILL GREAT EE INDUCEMENT® l 

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2 Copies for S3. 50 

3 “ “ 4.50 

4 Copies for &6.50 

G “ “ 9.00 

5 Copies for S8.00 

7 “ “ 10.50 


Octave Femilet’s New Work. 


THE HISTORY ofa PARISIENNE 

(HISTOIRE D’UNE PARISIENNE.) 

BEING THE STORY OF A PARISIAN WOMAN OF FASHION. 
BY OCTAVE FEUEEÏÆT. 

AUTHOR OF “THE COUNT DE CAMORS,” “THE AMOURS OF PHILIPPE; OR, PHILIPPE’S LOVE AFFAIRS,'* 
“ BELLAH,” “ THE LITTLE COUNTESS,” ETC. 

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY CHARLES RIPLEY. 


In “ The History of a Parisienne Octave Feuillet makes a novel out 
of the materials which he finds in the upper circles of aristocratic society 
in France. His aim is to show how an accomplished , beautiful and ami- 
able girl, may be transformed, by being wedded* to a worthless , cynical and 
depraved husband, into a kind of moral monster, capable of anything and 
believing in iiothing. He lays the blame of the ruin of many married women 
to the carelessness or perversity of their mothers in accepting husbands for 
them who are not suited to win their hearts or to understand their souls. 
Every page is illuminated by some bright witticism or profound observation. 
As a work of art, one cannot fail to get great pleasure out of the book ; 
while for cleverness, thrilling biter est, and beauty of style, it is unquestion- 
ably one of the most powerful and successful works ever put forth by this 
gifted author. Highly original in form and intensely dramatic, it also stands 
unrivalled as an example of terse and graphic character-painting ; and the 
terrible transformation wrought in the nature of a pure and noble woman 
by evil associates and the brutality of a coarse and unscrupulous husband 
is delineated with a skill that holds the reader spell-bound to the end. 


Paper Cover, 50 Cents. Morocco Cloth, Gilt and Black, $1.00. 


I %lr (e The History of a Parisienne” is issued in a large square i2mo. 
volume, in uniform style with “The Count de Camors,” “ Bellah,” “The 
Little Countess,” and “The Amours of Philippe,” by Octave Feuillet, and 
with the works of “ Henry Greville,” and “ Emile Zola,” issued by us, all of 
which books are for sale by all Booksellers and News Agents, and on all Rail- 
road Trains, or copies of any one, or all of the books, will be sent to any one, 
post-paid, on remitting their price to the Publishers, 

T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS, Philadelphia, Pa. 




























































































































































































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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 


0D0E21bl4fciS 


